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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Sniper Reverses Stance on Appeal

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — The convicted sniper John A. Muhammad has changed his mind again and now wants to go forward with a federal appeal of his conviction and death sentence, his lawyers have said.

In a letter from death row made public this week, Mr. Muhammad told the Virginia attorney general that he wanted to suspend all appeals on his 2003 death sentence and that appeals filed on his behalf were not authorized. But Mr. Muhammad’s lawyer James Connell wrote on Thursday to a United States district judge saying Mr. Muhammad now wanted to proceed with his appeal.

“Mr. Muhammad expressly authorized me to represent that (1) he does not wish to be executed; (2) he does not wish to abandon the (appeals) process; and (3) he does not wish to discharge his legal team,” Mr. Connell wrote.

Katherine Baldwin, a senior assistant attorney general who represents Virginia, said Friday that she accepted Mr. Connell’s representation and that she saw no reason to take action based on Mr. Muhammad’s earlier letter.

Mr. Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Malvo, were convicted after the October 2002 sniper shootings that left 10 people dead. Mr. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.

Source: The New York Times

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