Tag Archives: execution

Politics, States Rights, US

Utah Becomes Only State To Authorize Execution By Firing Squad As Backup Method

4 Comments

On Monday, Republican Governor Gary Herbert made Utah the only state to allow exception by firing squad, when he signed a bill that made it legal, if lethal injection is not available.

The bill states that it “modifies the Utah Code of Criminal Procedure regarding the execution of the death penalty,” by providing that if “substances are not available to carry out the death penalty by lethal injection on the date specified by warrant,” the death penalty “shall be carried out by firing squad.”

Reuters reported that this decision comes during a shortage of the drugs used for lethal injections, after several pharmaceutical companies, primarily in Europe, “imposed sales bans about four years ago because they objected to having medications made for other purposes being used in executions.”

State Representative Paul Ray (R), a sponsor of the bill, told the Associated Press that when being executed by firing squad, a prisoner is seated in a chair with a target pinned over his/her heart. He said that the inmate is then shot by five anonymous shooters (chosen from a pool of volunteers, with priority given to the ones from the area in which the crime happened), firing .30-caliber Winchester rifles through slots in a wall that is 25 feet away.

Marty Carpenter, a spokesman for Herbert, released a statement saying that while lethal injection is the preferred method, the state of Utah feels obligated to execute individuals by the date listed on their death warrant.

“We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit the death penalty and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection when such a sentence is issued,” Carpenter said. “However, when a jury makes the decision and a judge signs a death warrant, enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation of the executive branch.”

Carpenter also claimed that those who voiced opposition to the bill were “primarily arguing against capital punishment in general.”

State Representative Stephen Handy (R), who is in opposition to the bill, told Reuters that the thought of a firing squad “sends a horrible message from the state of Utah.”

The Washington Post reported that Utah, which currently has no lethal injection drugs, has eight inmates on its death row, and three have selected death by firing squad as their method of execution.

Featured, Swann TV, US

Interview: Killing of Three Muslim Students at UNC an “Act of Terrorism”

Video 46 Comments

Washington D.C.- The family of three Muslim college students shot “execution style” over a parking dispute says that their loved ones were killed because of their religion.

All three of the victims, Deah Barakat, 23, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Razan Abu-Salha, 19, were Muslim. The victims, a newlywed couple and the bride’s younger sister, were shot in the head.

deah-shaddy-barakat-family

The man who turned himself in for the shootings, 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks, has been charged with murder. Hicks claims that he killed all three students over an ongoing dispute regarding parking.

AP_craig_stephen_hicks_kab_150211_16x9_992

Meanwhile the community around University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has shown a powerful outpouring of support for the family. More than 2,000 people turned out for the vigil on the campus.

The suspect, Craig Hicks was a self-proclaimed atheist and his Facebook page contains various anti-Muslim and anti-Christian posts.

In the video above Ben Swann speaks with family spokesperson Linda Sarsour who says that the family of the victims has plenty of reason to believe that these three murders were motivated by hate.

International

Man arrested in Saudi Arabia for filming the beheading of a woman

24 Comments

The Saudi Arabian police have arrested the man who filmed the public beheading of a woman in the streets of Mecca.

The footage, according to the Independent, showed Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Bassim being dragged through the streets of Mecca before four police officers surrounded her in the street. A man in a white robe then steps forward with a curved sword and deals three blows to Bassim’s neck, severing her head from her body.

Bassim was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering her stepdaughter, according to Mediaite, but she claimed her innocence in the video up until the first sword blow met her neck.

“I did not kill. There is no God but God. I did not kill,” Bassim said while the police and executioner surrounded her. “This is injustice… I did not kill.”

After the public execution, the footage of the event was posted online by a human rights activist group in order to draw attention to the judicial system in place in the country. A UN investigation into the trials which have led to executions in Saudi Arabia called the trials “grossly unfair,” according to the Daily Mail.

Once the Saudi government saw the video online, an unnamed man was brought into custody, and a Saudi official told the New York Times, the man will face charges related to cyber-security.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), an organization based in Mecca, according to VICE News, said the dissemination of the footage is a crime and they want the person who filmed the execution punished.

“Those who disseminated the clip are not less guilty than those who filmed the execution,” said Mohammed Al Sahli, a member of the NSHR.

Other videos have been circulating online depicting public executions in Saudi Arabia. According to the Times of Israel, 10 people have been executed publicly this year already, while the number of public executions in 2014 was 87.

Featured, Images, International, Politics, US

The brutality of ISIS on full display in new photos

72 Comments

Editor’s note: Google has found these images to be too graphic and warned that we could lose our advertising account. We have removed the images in question.

 

WARNING: The following images may be disturbing to some viewers.

The terrorist group known as ISIS has reportedly used brutal tactics in the past few months in order to claim and hold land in the Middle East, but a series of photos have been released showing the extent of how ISIS fighters punish law breakers in their controlled lands.

Among the photos are a few depicting an ISIS execution of two homosexual men by pushing them from a tall balcony. The pictures show a man being pushed onto a ledge, another of a man falling through the open air, and one of two bodies lying on the ground surrounded by pools of blood. As is evident in the pictures, these were public executions as a crowd had formed at the base of the balcony where the men were pushed.

Two blindfolded men are also showed crucified to wooden beams, while a man stands in front of them and a surrounding crowd and reads their crimes. According to the Daily Record, the men were accused of banditry. After their charges are read, two militants step up behind the crucified men and execute each with a single shot from their respective handguns.

Final, a set of images shows the execution by stoning of a woman. Her execution can be said to be less public as it appears to be taking place in a secluded, wooded area, but the brutality of her death via stoning is still on display.

Public executions have been reportedly taking place in all ISIS controlled areas since the group declared their lands the Caliphate, or Islamic State.

Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center researched ISIS’ version of Sharia Law and published his findings under the title “Profiling the Islamic State.” In this research, Lister writes, “The implementation of a strict form of sharia law is clearly central to IS’s governance.” In this version of Sharia Law, serious punishments are dealt out to people who violate seemingly minute offenses such as listening to non-Islamic music or deviating from the assigned dress code implemented by ISIS.

Given ISIS’ penchant for a wide range of propaganda, these images and executions seem to serve multiple purposes. Not only are crimes being punished in these pictures, but the images may also be meant to scare people in and around ISIS controlled areas.  

International, US

Middle Eastern civilians have more to fear than ISIS now

Leave a comment

ISIS is currently the single largest, immediate threat to citizens in the Middle East, but people in the area now have to worry about Shia militias carrying out similar acts of brutality.

Shia militias in Iraq have reportedly abducted and killed large numbers of Sunnis in the area in retaliation against ISIS, according to an Amnesty International report released Tuesday.

This report says the Shia militias are armed and supported by the Iraqi government which is currently controlled by Shia Muslims.  However, the report does say these militiamen are not part of any official Iraqi military organization, and they operate outside any official oversight or legal framework.

Bodies have been showing up in cities not controlled by ISIS since June, when the Iraqi military was in a state of disarray from the threat of ISIS.  The bodies have been found in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Samarra, and all have reportedly had execution style gunshot wounds to their heads.

“Shia militias are ruthlessly targeting Sunni civilians on a sectarian basis under the guise of fighting terrorism,” said Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera, according to the Independent.  “By granting its blessing to militias who routinely commit such abhorrent abuses, the Iraqi government is sanctioning war crimes and fueling a dangerous cycle of sectarian violence that is tearing the country apart.”

While the Amnesty report has shed light on human rights violations in Iraq, but according to Al-Jazeera, Shia militia spokesmen in the country have called the report, “an attempt to downgrade our gains and accomplishments so far in the fight against ISIL by supporting the Iraqi forces.”

Naeem Al-Aboudi, the spokeman of the Shia militia group Aasab Ahl Haq, said, “We had fought and won over ISIL in Shia and Sunni areas and while doing so we had not violated any human rights.” 

International, US

FBI calls for Americans to identify ISIS fighters

2 Comments

While the intelligence community has been working on trying to identifying the infamous ‘Jihadi Joe’ from previous ISIS beheading videos, the FBI is now asking for the American public to help them identify any people who have traveled to the Middle East or are planing to travel there in order to fight for ISIS.

The call for the American people’s help and support started after the release of an ISIS propaganda video titled “Flames of War.”  The video features a fighter who speaks to the camera in Arabic, but then switches to fluent English.  While he talks to the camera, men behind him are  seen “digging their own graves in the very place they were stationed.”  Eventually, all of the people digging their graves are killed in the video.

What is significant about this video is the fighter’s ability to effortlessly switch from Arabic to English. CNN reports the English dialect of the ISIS fighter is a North American accent, and this prompted the FBI to ask for help identifying the fighter and any others who might want to fight for ISIS.

Officials are saying the man on film could be a Middle Eastern man educated in the west, or they could be from North America and traveled to the area to aid ISIS.

One security analyst says this video was clearly meant for a western audience.  Frank Cillufo, the analyst from George Washington University, said, “Clearly ISIS had a calculated step to be able to put this guy on camera… Why? Because he seems American. The message is aimed at a Western audience.”

Michael Steinbach, the assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said on the FBI’s webpage, “We are hoping that someone might recognize this individual and provide us with key pieces of information… No piece of information is too small.”

Steinbach also said, “We need the public’s assistance in identifying U.S. persons going to fight overseas with terrorist groups or who are returning home from fighting overseas.”

As of now, top US security officials have estimated about 100 Americans have traveled to the Middle East in order to fight for ISIS.

International, US

Fourth ISIS hostage beheaded in yet another video

2 Comments

British aid worker Alan Henning, another ISIS hostage, has been beheaded on video three weeks after the Scottish aid worker David Haines was executed in a similar fashion.

In the video, a man dressed in orange speaks to the camera, saying, according to ABC News, “I am Alan Henning. Because of our Parliament’s decision to attack the Islamic State [ISIS], I, as a member of the British public, will now pay the price for that decision.”

The executioner standing next to Henning then speaks to the camera before carrying out the grizzly act, saying, “The blood of [fellow slain captive] David Haines was on your hands, [British Prime Minister David] Cameron… Alan Henning will also be slaughtered but his blood is on the hands of the British Parliament.”

The video has yet to be authenticated by US or British intelligence agencies.

Henning was captured in Syria last December as he was driving an aid truck across the border between Turkey and Syria, according to the AP.  This was the second time Henning took part in an aid convoy into Syria where he and a group of Muslim friends delivered medical equipment.

According to the Guardian, a group of armed gunmen surrounded a warehouse, which Henning was in, and took Henning captive.  The gunmen said they were suspicious of Henning since he was not Muslim like the rest of the volunteers, and they were also concerned about a chip in his UK passport.  The other volunteers tried to show the gunmen how all UK passports carried a similar chip, but this did not deter them from taking Henning.

Earlier, Barbara Henning, the wife of Alan Henning, released her own video, asking ISIS to release her husband, saying, “Surely those who wish to be seen as a state will act in a statesman-like way by showing mercy and providing clemency.”

Barbara also said, according to the BBC, “Muslims across the globe continue to question Islamic State over Alan’s fate.”

Two British Imams, last month, also made a claim for sparing Henning’s life, saying holding Henning was against Islamic law and “haram [forbidden].”

At the end of the video, another hostage clad in orange is shown to the camera.  This fifth hostage was identified as American Peter Kassig, but like the rest of the video, these claims have not been verified yet.

Featured, International

BREAKING: Third Captive Executed By ISIS

8 Comments

 

In a video released Saturday on a website associated with the group ISIS, British aid worker David Haines was executed, making him the third Western captive to be killed by the extremist group in recent weeks, according to CNN.

The video, entitled “a message to the allies of America,” was produced similarly to the videos that showed the executions of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. In Sotloff’s video, Haines appears at the end where his life is threatened.

At the end of the new video, masked ISIS militant places his hand on another captive, whom he identified as Alan Henning, a British citizen.

Haines was a logistics and security manager for the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, a nongovernmental humanitarian agency. Haines, 44, was abducted in March 2013 near a refugee camp in Atmeh, Syria.

Here is a transcription of the video:

Video cuts to a black screen with Arabic text and “A Message to the Allies of America” written in English before showing Haines on his knees in an orange jumpsuit with an executioner dressed in black standing to his left and holding a knife.

Haines: My Name is David Cawthorne Haines. I would like to declare that I hold you, David Cameron, entirely responsible for my execution.

You entered voluntarily into a coalition with the United States against the Islamic State, just as your predecessor Tony Blair did, following a trend amongst our British prime ministers who can’t find the courage to say no to the Americans.

Unfortunately, it is we the British public that in the end will pay for the price for our parliament’s selfish decisions.

Executioner: This British man has to pay the price for your promise, Cameron, to arm the Peshmerga against the Islamic State.

Ironically, he has spent a decade of his life serving under the brutal air force that is responsible for delivering those arms.

Your evil alliance with America, which continues to strike the Muslims of Iraq and most recently bombed the Haditha Dam, will only accelerate your destruction, and playing the role of the obedient lapdog, Cameron, will only drag you and your people into another bloody and unwinnable war.

If you, Cameron, insist on fighting the Islamic State then you, like your master, Obama, will have the blood of your people on your hands.

Video from CNN:

International, Politics

Militants in Gaza publicly execute alleged spies

4 Comments

As fighting commences in Gaza following the week-long truce and funeral processions for the family of a Hamas military leader, Hamas militants have publicly executed 18 Palestinians for allegedly spying for Israel.

Seven of those executed were lined up in front of a crowd of hundreds outside of the Omari mosque on Palestine Square, with bags over their heads and their hands bound.  Each was shot with automatic rifles for those present to see.  The other 11 were executed by militants at an abandoned police station in Gaza, according to YNetNews.

One eye-witness to the Omari mosque executions told reporters, according to the Independent, the executioners told the crowd those who were executed, “had sold their souls to the enemy for a cheap price.”

The names of those killed were not released to the public, as Hamas said they wanted to protect the families of those killed.

These killings are reportedly the beginning of new crackdowns on Israeli collaborators in Gaza.  According to ABC News, rally cries for people to “[choke] the neck of the collaborators,” have also been heard throughout the area.

Hamas security services made a post to their website, Al Majd, saying from now on, people who are suspected of being spies would not have a court hearing to determine their innocence or guilt.  Rather, these individuals will be dealt with “in the field,” meaning soldiers will decide the fate of those who are accused of being spies.

This same site said those who had been executed had “confessed” to their alleged crimes against the people of Palestine.  Their crimes included reporting on the movement of military commanders and providing the locations of resistance fighters throughout Gaza.

Another pro-Hamas website made a post following the executions saying, “The resistance has begun an operation called ‘strangling the necks’, targeting collaborators who aid the (Israeli) occupation, kill our people and destroy houses.”

These executions come a day after Israeli forces tracked down and killed three high-ranking Hamas commanders, according to the Mirror.

International

ISIL tightens grip on Iraq

8 Comments

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the terrorist group disavowed by al-Qaeda and is responsible for the recent state of turmoil in the Middle East, has captured the city of Tal Afar and made claims of mass execution over the weekend.

The city of Tal Afar is close to the Iraqi city of Mosul, which was captured last week along with the arms depots within the city.  According to the NBC News, the same weapons captured in Mosul, mostly rocket launchers and machineguns, were used in the seizure of Tal Afar.

Capturing the city is a strategic move by ISIL who also have captured cities in Syria.  Tal Afar is only 93 miles from the Syrian border, making it an opportune route to connect ISIL forces and supplies across the northern parts of the two countries.

ISIL also released photos this past weekend of their members executing hundreds of captured Iraqi soldiers and civilians.  According to RT, the photos were posted to the Twitter account associated with ISIL, and a spokesman for the group claimed the pictures and killings took place just north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The group has had their sights set on attacking Baghdad, which has prompted the U.S. to strengthen the security of the embassy in the city.  About 150 U.S. Marines arrived at the embassy to protect U.S. citizens and diplomats.  The embassy itself though will stay open, said the U.S. State Department, but some of the staff will be relocated temporarily.

This comes a few days after planeloads of other American diplomats were evacuated from the Iraqi airbase of Balad, another city just north of Baghdad.

British officials in Baghdad said they have no intention to evacuate their staff from what is designated the “Green Zone” in the city, but they claimed to have witnessed large groups of individuals lining up at the main airport while many others withdrew money from local banks.

The U.S. is considering talks with Iran in the coming days to cooperate in combating ISIL in Iraq.  Iran has already sent their Revolutionary Guard to combat ISIL forces, while the U.S. government is considering sending drones and other air support to aid the Iranian fighters.

International, Politics

Dictator Kim Jong-Un Reportedly Has Uncle Stripped Naked, Then Watches 120 Wild Dogs Eat Him Alive

61 Comments

Screenshot 2014-01-03 at 11.55.41 AM

During a New Years address, North Korea dictator Kim Jong-Un championed the recent execution of his uncle, 67-year-old Jang Song-Thaek. Kim did not, however, specify exactly how Jang was executed. According to Hong Kong paper Wen Wei Po, the 67-year-old was stripped naked and then thrown into a cage with 120 starved wild dogs who ate him alive.

Kim allegedly ordered the horrific death sentence as a punishment called “quan jue” for treachery. This type of execution is saved for only the most despised individuals — “normal” executions are carried out with firearms.

This particular execution was reportedly supervised by Kim himself on December 12. Five other men, all who were aides to the dictator, were also executed via “quan jue” along with Kim’s uncle.

The dictator called his uncle, who was once one of the most influential men in North Korea, “scum” and “filth” during his New Years address. Informing his uncle’s execution, Kim said, “Our party took resolute action to remove…scum elements within the party last year.”

article-2533088-1A61328900000578-696_634x470

He continued, “Our party’s timely, accurate decision to purge the anti-party, anti-revolutionary elements helped greatly cement solidarity within our party.”

Jang supposedly committed treachery by having “improper relations with several women” and because he “squandered foreign currency at casinos while he was receiving medical treatment in a foreign country under the care of the party.”

Many analysts believe the real reason Kim ordered Jang’s execution was because he felt threatened by him. Jang was considered one of the most powerful men in North Korea and had helped Kim come to power after his father, King Jong-II, died in 2011.

article-2523574-1A16B6D300000578-132_634x436

It seems clear that the execution was an effort to prove dominance, fearlessness, and leadership by Kim; it was almost a warning to anyone threatening to challenge the dictator.

Kim also spoke about war during his New Years address. He said, “If the war breaks out again in this land, it will bring about a massive nuclear disaster and the US will never be safe.”

The dictator’s “reign of terror” and love of power has many around the world terrified. It seems that he has no boundaries when trying to prove the power and scope of his position.

Follow Kristin on Facebook and Twitter.