THE FALL OF SINGAPORE THEY BEHEADED ENEMY SOLDIERS, BURNED PRISONERS ALIVE, INVADED HOSPITAL KILLING THE PATIENTS WHERE THEY LAY IN THEIR BED'S PLUS THE NURSES AND DOCTORS,

the fall of Singapore they beheaded enemy soldiers, burned prisoners alive, invaded hospital killing the patients where they lay in their beds plus the nurses and doctors,

their Australian and British POW were worked and often bashed to death when they were forced to build the Burma-Thailand Railway, they say say one death for every sleeper laid.

Singapore, city of silk shirts, colonial grandeur, Singapore Slings at The Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, peanut shells, Change Alley, merchant shipping and the infamous Merlion, not to mention the best chicken satay anywhere in the world.

Nowadays the city is a melting pot of cultures, a haven for ex-pats and a centre of tourism.

However, there is a lot more to this ex-British colony than its culinary expertise, financial finesse and adventurous nautical history.

This tiny sovereign island nation was the scene of the largest surrender of British-led forces ever recorded in history.

 Singapore is a sovereign island nation, sandwiched between Malaysia and Indonesia in South-East Asia.

At the time, it was considered by the British as their Gibraltar in the Far East, assumed to be just as impregnable and certainly as valuable as it’s European counterpart.

Singapore was, and indeed remains, the gateway to the rest of Asia. If you control Singapore, then you control a huge proportion of the Far East.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the British forces stationed in Singapore epitomized the British military idea of officers and gentlemen. The atmosphere was very much one of colonial sociability.

The Raffles Hotel was as synonymous with military life for many officers as the heat, tin hats and khaki uniform and not forgetting the ever-present Japanese threat.

However, as prevalent as this threat may have been, there was an air almost of lethargy among the colonial forces stationed there at the time.

An attack was expected, but victory for the British forces was considered a foregone conclusion.

Singapore was designed as a formidable fortress and thought impregnable. This arrogance was to contribute to the eventual downfall of the British forces.

When the Japanese did attack, it was indicative of their military prowess in the region at the time.

Their soldiers were ruthless, brutal and fearless, and the attack happened with a speed and savagery that took the British forces completely by surprise.

Encouraged not to take prisoners, simply to execute those in their path, the Japanese swept through Singapore with the force of a tsunami, leaving shock and destruction in their wake.

OVER THE COURSE OF TWO DAYS, 33, 771 JEWS WERE MURDERED IN THE BABI YAR RAVINE, LOCATED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF KIEV, THE CAPITAL OF UKRAINE (USSR). A WEEK AFTER

 Over the course of two days, 33,771 Jews were murdered in the Babi Yar ravine, located on the outskirts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine (USSR). A week after

In the summer of 1941, following Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, Germans and their allies and collaborators began mass shootings of Jewish men, women, and children in territory seized from Soviet forces.

These murders were part of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. 

Generally, the large-scale massacres are better known. This is because of the high number of victims, and the fact that the large-scale mass shootings were perpetrated close to bigger towns or cities. 

Among the largest mass shootings conducted soon after German forces entered the Soviet Union were the massacres at Kamenets-Podolsk (Kamianets-Podils’kyi) and Babi Yar (Babyn Yar).

On August 26-28, 1941, German SS and police units, supported by Ukranian auxiliaries, murdered 23,600 Jews at Kamenets-Podolsk in occupied Ukraine.

Then, on September 29-30, 1941, SS and German police units and their auxiliaries murdered a large portion of the Jewish population who remained in Kiev (Kyiv) at Babi Yar.

At the time, Babi Yar was a ravine located just outside the city. According to Einsatzgruppen reports, 33,771 Jews were massacred during this two-day period.

After the massacre, the ravine at Babi Yar became a killing site where Germans murdered tens of thousands of people, mostly non-Jews, between 1941 and 1943. It is estimated that some 100,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar.

As with Babi Yar, the Germans established killing sites near other cities where they repeatedly carried out massacres.

Tens of thousands of people, most of them Jews, were murdered at each of these killing sites.

The most infamous of these sites were Fort IX in Kovno (Kaunas), the Rumbula and Bikernieki Forests in Riga, Ponary near Vilna (Vilnius), and Maly Trostenets near Minsk. At these killing sites, Germans and local collaborators murdered tens of thousands of local Jews.

They also deported tens of thousands of German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from central Europe to these killing sites in 1941 and 1942. 

As many as 2 million Jews -- almost one third of the Holocaust victims -- were murdered in mass shootings.

A MAN CONVICTED OF RAPING AND MURDERING A 3 YEAR OLD GIRL WAS EXECUTED IN SANA'A ON MONDAY IN FRONT OF HUNDREDS OF ONLOOKERS, THE FIRST PUBLIC EXECUTION THERE SINCE 2009

 A man convicted of raping and murdering a 3-year-old girl was executed in Sanaa on Monday in front of hundreds of onlookers, the first public execution there since 2009.

"Security was very tight, because authorities were fearing a revenge attack by armed men from the Bani Matar tribe to which the girl's family belong," said Reuters photographer Khaled Abdullah, who witnessed the scene.

The police van transporting Muhammad al-Maghrabi, 41, to Sanaa's Tahrir Square was escorted by five police patrol vehicles. 

The execution drew a large number of onlookers, some perched up telegraph poles and many watching from rooftops.

The crowd started to shout "Allah is the greatest" when Maghrabi arrived.

"The man was escorted from the van to the middle of the square, and then the place turned to a complete chaos and I fought for a position to take pictures," Abdullah said.

"He tried to talk to the executioner, a police officer who was calmly smoking a cigarette as he stood next to him before pointing his AK-47 to his back from a very close distance.

"Soon he fired around four shots, and people realized that it was done, they rushed to the place and tried to take the body, but the police were able to take the body to the van and drove through the crowd out of the square."

Yahya al-Matari, the father of the murder victim, Rana al-Matari, told reporters after the execution he was satisfied.

"This is the first day in my life," he said. "I am relieved now."

Yemen has been devastated by more than two years of civil war between its Saudi-backed government and Houthi fighters who seized parts of the country in 2014 and 2015.

A MAN IN INDIA WAS STABBED IN THE NECK WITH A 150 YEAR OLD TRIDENT-YET APPARENTLY FELT NO PAIN.

 A man in India was stabbed in the neck with a 150-year-old trident — yet apparently felt no pain.

Bhaskar Ram, 33, was impaled by the ancient 1½-foot weapon during a fight with two men at his workplace in Kalyani on Nov. 28.

After being rushed to the hospital, Ram told the doctors he felt no pain. Pictures and video show an oddly calm Ram with the trident sticking out of his neck.

Ram was transferred to a hospital in West Bengal in order to receive specialized treatment for his injury, according to SWNS.

Graphic photo and video shows the weapon had entered the right side of his neck and went all the way through to the left.

The medical staff at Kolkata NRS Medical College in West Bengal allegedly had to wake up Dr. Pranabashish Banerjee at 3 a.m. so he could preform emergency surgery to remove the trident from Ram’s neck.

While the trident went straight through Ram’s neck, it somehow did not sever any veins or arteries. According to the doctor, only traces of blood were found outside Ram’s mouth

.“None of the vital structures were injured as the rod had miraculously missed the vital organs that included the carotid, internal jugular vein, trachea, esophagus, larynx, vertebra and the spinal cord,” Banerjee said.

Ram has recovered from the bizarre attack extremely well, according to the doctor.

SAALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM' IS ONE OF THE MOST HORRIFYING AND ABSURD FIRMS EVER MADE. THE STORY OF LORD MANNSY WORST FANTASIES AND HOW HE BRUTALLY EXPLOITS 18 YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN.

 Saalo, or the 120 Days of Sodom' is one of the most horrifying and absurd films ever made.the story of Lord Mann's worst fantasies and how he brutally exploits 18 young men and women.

The film focuses on four wealthy, corrupt Italian libertines in the time of the fascist Republic of Salò (1943–1945).

The libertines kidnap 18 teenagers and subject them to four months of extreme violence, sadism, genital torture and psychological torture.

The film explores themes of political corruption, consumerism, authoritarianism, nihilism, morality, capitalism, totalitarianism, sadism, sexuality, and fascism. The story is in four segments, inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy:

the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit, and the Circle of Blood. The film also contains frequent references to and several discussions of Friedrich Nietzsche's 1887 book On the Genealogy of Morality, 

Ezra Pound's poem The Cantos, and Marcel Proust's novel sequence In Search of Lost Time.

Premiering at the Paris Film Festival on 23 November 1975, the film had a brief theatrical run in Italy before being banned in January 1976, and was released in the United States the following year on 3 October 1977.

Because it depicts youths subjected to graphic violence, torture, sexual abuse, and murder, the film was controversial upon its release and has remained banned in many countries.

The confluence of thematic content in the film—ranging from the political and socio-historical, to psychological and sexual—has led to much critical discussion.

It has been both praised and decried by various film historians and critics and was named the 65th-scariest film ever made by the Chicago Film Critics Association in 2006.[4]

TODAY 109 YEARS AGO ILLUSTRATION OF A BRITISH SOLDIER LAYING IN A FIELD OF POPPIES BY @JENBETTON

 Today 109 years ago Illustration of a British soldier laying in a field of poppies by @jenbetton.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.

There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust conceal'd;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England's, breathing English air.Wash'd by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

• The Soldier was written while Brooke was on leave at Christmas, 1914; it was the final sonnet in a collection of five that he entitled "1914" - his reflections on the outbreak of war. They were first published in the magazine New Numbers in January 1915.

Rupert Brooke never experienced front-line combat, but was sailing for Gallipoli with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force when he contracted blood poisoning from a mosquito bite.

He died on April 23 1915 (St George's Day), aged 27, and was buried on the island of Skyros, in an olive grove chosen by his friend William Denis Browne (who was killed at Gallipoli two months later). Recalling Brooke's death, Browne had written:I sat with Rupert.

At four o'clock he became weaker, and at 4.46 he died, with the sun shining all round his cabin, and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows.

No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme."

Nineteen days before Brooke's death, on Easter Sunday, Dean William Ralph Inge had read The Soldier from the pulpit of St Paul's as part of his sermon.

That sonnet was published in the Times the next day to great acclaim - as, shortly after, was Winston Churchill's obituary of Brooke.

THE ROMANTIIZATION OF THE DEAD FEMALE BODY IN VICTORIAN

 The romantilization of the dead female body in victorian

The appearance of an important biography of Poe in France and the preparation of still another in America, the publication of his most widely-read poem with illustrations by Doré, and the prospective unveiling of a memorial tablet to his honor,

seem to furnish a fit occasion for inviting attention to a striking but hitherto unnoted characteristic of his poetry.

In fact, with the exception of a comparatively few closeted minds, the attention of the world has thus far been riveted upon the overwhelming sorrows of Poe's lot,

the mysterious inequalities of his moods, and the phenominal aspects of his career, rather than devoted to the critical examination of his works.

The retributive swing of the human mind, also, naturally bore it first to the rescue of his name and character both from the innumerable legends that grew up around them during his lifetime, and from the blunders and the malignity that overwhelmed them immediately after his death.

Thus, criticism, especially in America, has not yet spent its powers upon his literary remains, and thus it seems possible that a brief examination of his poems may serve to exhibit them in a novel and interesting light.

There are poets who claim all hours and all seasons for their own; but an almost constitutional concomitant of the poetry of Poe is night.

Of the more than forty pieces that comprise his poetical works a fifth are wholly night scenes, and in the composition of three-fourths the shadow of night fell athwart his mind and supplied it with its favorite imagery.

The remaining poems, with the exception of three, do not contain the element of time at all. Two of these mentioned as exceptions were written in his youth, before he had elaborated his views of the “Poetic Principle,” or his imagination had assumed its final cast.

Thus, among his later poems that contain the element of time, there is only one—“The Haunted Palace”—that may be called a day-scene; and when it is remembered that this poem is designed to describe the overthrow and ruin of a beautiful mind,

so that all the imagery introduced throughout merely expresses the contrast between reason and madness, even it will scarcely be regarded as a solitary exception.

Leaving it out of consideration, therefore, we may say that all his most beautiful poems, having any relation to time, belong wholly to the night, and from it draw their elements of power and pathos.

These, by general consent, are “The Raven”—the night of dying embers and ghostly shadows, of mournful memories and broken hopes; “Lenore”—the night of the bell-tolling for the saintly soul that floats on the Stygian river;

“Helen”—the night of the full-orbed moon and silvery, silken veil of light, of the upturned faces of a thousand roses, of beauty, clad in white, reclining upon a bed of violets; “Ulalume”—the night of sober,

ashen skies and crisp, sere leaves in the lonesome October, of dim lakes and ghoul-haunted woodland; “The Bells”—the night of the icy air through which the stars that oversprinkle all the heavens seem to twinkle with crystalline delight;

“Annabel Lee”—the night of the wind blowing out of a cloud, chilling and killing his beautiful bride in the Kingdom by the Sea; “The Conqueror Worm”—the gala knight in his lonesome latter years with its angel throng bedight in veils and drowned in tears; and “The Sleeper”—the night of the mystic moon,

exhaling from her golden rim an opiate vapor that drips upon the mountain top and steals drowsily and musically into the Universal Valley—the night of nodding rosemary and lolling water-lily—of fog-wrapped ruin and slumber-steeped lake.

EXECUTIONS OF 6 PRISONERS IN IRAN ON TUESDAY INCLUDING TWO UNDERAGE TEENAGERS:A 17-YEAR-OLD NAMED HAMID REZA AND ANOTHER PRISONER NAMED AHMAD HEYDARI WAS EXECUTED IN KHORRAMABAD CENTRAL PRISON

 Executions of 6 Prisoners in Iran on Tuesday Including Two Underage Teenagers:a 17-year-old named Hamid Reza and another prisoner named Ahmad Heydari was executed in Khorramabad Central Prison

According to the Iran Human Rights Society, on Wednesday, May 1st, 6 prisoners executed in the prisons of Ghezel Hesar in Karaj and Parsilon in Khorramabad.

Early in the morning on Tuesday, April 30th, a prisoner named Saeed Imani executed in Parsilon Prison, Khorramabad. He was arrested and sentenced to death on murder charges three years ago.

The news of this execution has not been published in domestic media or websites associated with the judiciary yet.

At dawn on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024, five prisoners executed in QezelHesar prison in Karaj. The names of the executed are political prisoner Anwar Khezri, Farzad Gravand, Majid Barati, Reza Shirdehi, Majid Hazhbari.

Farzad Gravand and Majid Barati arrested in a joint case related to drug charges.  They were from the mountains of Lorestan.  Their death sentence executed at dawn on Tuesday the 30th of April 2024.

Political prisoner Anwar Khezri, along with Reza Shirdehi and Majid Hazhbari, executed in the same prison on Wednesday morning.  Reza Shirdahi and Majid Hazhbari arrested on charges of murder and sentenced to death by the court.

Anwar Khezri from Mahabad who arrested by security officers and transferred to the Urmia Intelligence Department detention center along with 2 other Sunni compatriots named Kamran Sheikhe and Khosro Basharat. 

During his detention, Anwar Khezri first accused of murdering a soldier. And later this charge changed to participation in the bombing.

  During the time of detention and court hearings, which began after 4 years of indecision, political prisoner Anwar Khezri denied all accusations.On June 15, 1996, the political prisoner Anwar Khezri officially sentenced to death in prison. 

After the lawyer of the case objected to this ruling, the case referred to the Supreme Court. And this ruling overturned at the end of 2016. 

After some time, the death sentence of the political prisoner Anwar Khazari and 6 religious-political Sunni prisoners issued by Judge Moghiseh, and on 3rd of February 2019, it was notified to their lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai.

The death sentence of these 7 religious-political Sunni prisoners issued with the influence of the Ministry of Inteligence. 

Political prisoner Anwar Khezri spent his days in prison suffering from shortness of breath and chest pain due to the tortures inflicted on him, and he deprived of sending to the hospital and treated.

PRIVATE EDDIE SLOVIK, EXECUTED FOR DESERTION IN 1945, HAS BEEN MEMORIAZED IN PRINT AND FIRM AS AN UNWRITTING SUFFERER OF A CRUEL ARMY. A DEEPER LOOK, THOUGH, REVEALS A DIFFERENT STORY.

 Private Eddie slovik, executed for desertion in 1945, has been memoriazed in print and firm as an unwitting sufferer of a cruel army. A deeper look, though, reveals a different story.

August 1944, and the 24-year-old replacement’s knees turned to jelly as he experienced artillery fire for the first time on his way to his new outfit. He devised a bold plan to make sure it never happened again.

His scheme worked so well that he never again heard enemy fire, but the price Private Eddie D. Slovik paid for that silence was higher than he had bargained for, as he became the only American soldier shot for desertion since the Civil War.

Slovik’s story remained largely unknown until 1948, when journalist and navy veteran William Bradford Huie uncovered it while researching an article, “Are Americans Afraid to Fight?,” for Liberty magazine.

Huie followed the article with a bestselling 1954 book, The Execution of Private Slovik, later made into a television movie that attracted a record audience.

The book and 1974 film portray Slovik as a victim railroaded by callous army commanders itching to make an example of some sad sack as a way to deter desertions in the wake of the brutal Battle of the Bulge. Huie’s account has become the popular narrative.

As a prosecutor for 27 years with experience in death-penalty cases, I studied the Slovik trial record closely and found the popular narrative to be more of a good story than accurate history.

The army, in fact, tried multiple times to give Slovik an out. The finger of blame for the private’s execution, I learned, points in a surprising direction.

EDWARD DONALD SLOVIK had a troubled life from a young age. Born in Detroit on February 18, 1920, he dropped out of school at 15.

Before his 21st birthday, Slovik—at five foot six and 138 pounds, an unimposing figure—had been put on probation five times for burglary and assault, sentenced to jail twice, and had served time in a Michigan prison.

Paroled in April 1942, Slovik met Antoinette Wisniewski, a brown-eyed, dark-haired bookkeeper five years his senior, and they wed on November 7, 1942.

Slovik rode the wartime manufacturing boom, securing a well-paying job as a shipping clerk at the DeSoto division of Chrysler and largely keeping out of trouble.

To Slovik, the war looked like someone else’s problem. Although the army drafted men with criminal records, it did not consider those on parole.

So Slovik was safe from the draft—for a time. But on October 22, 1943, the Michigan Parole Board discharged him; he was inducted into the army on January 3, 1944.

BRITISH (SCOTTISH) SOLDIER INSPECTING FALLEN GERMAN MACHINE-GUNNERS NEAR METEREN IN FLANDERS, JULY 20, 1918

 British (Scottish) soldier inspecting fallen German machine-gunners near Méteren in Flanders, July 20, 1918.

The following is the diary entry of 21-year-old Danish-German machine-gunner I.J.I Bergholt reporting on a charge across a bridge on

 This morning at 1 a.m. a bombardment started on this front which lasted for about 5 hours. Our boys hopped over the top at 5 a.m. and with the assistance of our barrage gave Fritz a lively time.

Two of my pals saw over 1000 German prisoners come in. That was up at 11 o'clock. They were very ready to be taken prisoners.

They seemed to be sick and tired of the war, and our artillery is a nightmare to them. We gained all our objectives.

And still they come and go: and this is all I know... That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, With glad or grievous hearts I'll never understand Because Time spins so fast, and they've no time to stay Beyond the moment's gesture of a lifted hand.

And still, between the shadow and the blinding flame, The brave despair of men flings onward, ever the same As in those doom-lit years that wait them, and have been... And life is just the picture dancing on a screen."So, just as we were coming up to Minty's Farm, the shells started falling all around.

We got a slashing there all right. As we were struggling up to it one of the boys got hit with a huge shell fragment. It sliced him straight in two. He dropped his rifle and bayonet and threw his arms up in the air, and the top part of his torso fell back on to the ground.

The unbelievable thing was that the legs and the kilt went on running, just like a chicken with its head chopped off!

One of my boys - I think it was his special pal - went rushing after him... I shouted him back and he was wild with me because he wanted to help his pal. He couldn't realise that he was beyond hope.

ACCUSATIONS AGAINST IRMA GRESE WAS HER ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE SELECTION PROCESS UPON THE ARRIVAL OF NEW PRISONERS AT AUSCHWITZ.

 accusations against Irma Grese was her active participation in the selection process upon the arrival of new prisoners at Auschwitz.

 She was known to arbitrarily send individuals to gas chambers based on her own judgment, often targeting the weak, elderly, and children. 

Grese showed no mercy or remorse in carrying out these selections, earning her a reputation for being particularly ruthless.

Additionally, Grese was implicated in numerous instances of physical and psychological abuse towards prisoners. 

Witnesses testified to her engaging in brutal beatings, shootings, and even setting dogs on defenseless inmates. 

Her sadistic nature and enjoyment of inflicting suffering on others earned her the nickname “the Hyena of Auschwitz” among both prisoners and fellow guards.

Furthermore, Irma Grese was accused of using her position of power to sexually exploit male prisoners. 

She would often force them to engage in sexual acts under threat of violence or death, further demonstrating her depravity and lack of humanity.

Grese’s behavior extended beyond her interactions with prisoners, as she was also known for her participation in medical experiments conducted on inmates at Auschwitz.

 These experiments were often torturous and resulted in the suffering and deaths of many individuals, highlighting Grese’s willingness to partake in atrocities without hesitation.

Overall, Irma Grese’s actions at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen were characterized by extreme cruelty, sadism, and a complete disregard for human life

The accusations against her paint a picture of a woman who took pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on others, solidifying her place in history as one of the most infamous female perpetrators of the Holocaust.

20000 BRITISH AND COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS WERE CONVICTED OF CHARGES CARRYING THE DEATH PENALTY DURING WWI.

 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were convicted of charges carrying the death penalty during WWI.

Of these, 3,000 were sentenced to death and 306 finally executed. Most of these soldiers were conscripts although a detailed breakdown is beyond the scope of a brief article on Quora.

There is insufficient information available to draw a broad conclusion concerning the public attitude toward the executions during the war.

After the war, however, bereaved families started inquiries into the circumstances of their relatives' conviction and execution which eventually raised grave doubts regarding the British system of military justice.

While doubtless some of those shot were in fact wilfull deserters, there is also ample evidence that many were victims of cruel circumstance.

This movement grew into a decades-long popular campaign to redress perceived miscarriages of justice and obtain pardons for those wrongly executed.

The British government steadfastly resisted the public pressure. In 2001, the Shot at Dawn memorial listing those executed by firing squad, 

was dedicated at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire as a gift to the bereaved families by the sculptor Andy DeComyn.

Finally, in 2007, the British government amended the Armed Forces Act to enable issuing pardons to the executed men.

This is carefully couched, though, in language stipulating that such pardons would not invalidate “any conviction or sentence".

This is cold comfort, and much too late, for families who continue to live in the shadow of those long-ago firing squads.

A MAN CONVICTED OF RAPING AND MURDERING A 3 YEAR OLD GIRL WAS EXECUTED IN SANA'A

 A man convicted of raping and murdering a 3-year-old girl was executed in Sanaa

"Security was very tight, because authorities were fearing a revenge attack by armed men from the Bani Matar tribe to which the girl's family belong,"

 said Reuters photographer Khaled Abdullah, who witnessed the scene.

The police van transporting Muhammad al-Maghrabi, 41, to Sanaa's Tahrir Square was escorted by five police patrol vehicles.

The execution drew a large number of onlookers, some perched up telegraph poles and many watching from rooftops.

The crowd started to shout "Allah is the greatest" when Maghrabi arrived.

"The man was escorted from the van to the middle of the square, and then the place turned to a complete chaos and I fought for a position to take pictures," Abdullah said.

"He tried to talk to the executioner, a police officer who was calmly smoking a cigarette as he stood next to him before pointing his AK-47 to his back from a very close distance.

"Soon he fired around four shots, and people realized that it was done, they rushed to the place and tried to take the body, but the police were able to take the body to the van and drove through the crowd out of the square."

Yahya al-Matari, the father of the murder victim, Rana al-Matari, told reporters after the execution he was satisfied.

"This is the first day in my life," he said. "I am relieved now."

Yemen has been devastated by more than two years of civil war between its Saudi-backed government and Houthi fighters who seized parts of the country in 2014 and 2015.

46 COUNTRIES FACES OF DEATH, BANNED IN THE AGE OF POLICE BODY CAMERAS AND ISLAMIC STATE EXECUTION VIDEOS, IT RETAINS ITS POWER.

 46 countries faces of death.” banned in the age of police body cameras and Islamic State execution videos, it retains its power.

The documentary approach was what made the film so upsetting. “We went into the movie knowing this was real,” says Forget. “That was what was so weird,” adds Feese. 

“I was like, ‘Why are they filming this? Why are they doing this? What is wrong with people?’

In the 40 years since its 1978 release, Faces of Death has earned a reputation as one of the most shocking films ever made. 

Even today, in the age of police body cameras and Islamic State execution videos, it retains its power.

I tracked down Feese and Forget, whose families sued their high school, while working on a feature about Faces of Death for the podcast Snap Judgment. 

I’d heard rumours about the film while working on a project with John McNaughton, director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. 

I knew that MPI Media Group, the company that produced Henry, had distributed Faces of Death. I also knew MPI’s owners felt uneasy about the film.

 I started wondering how the director felt – and began hunting him down too, eventually finding him living with his family in Colorado, where he now runs a gun store.

“It’s kind of cool to think that, you know, I actually created a cult film,” he says. Unlike the stone-faced doctor who introduces the movie, he’s laidback and affable, with a streak of blond left in his long grey hair. 

He insists on being referred to by his directing pseudonym, Conan LeCilaire, a name he picked in his 20s because he thought it meant “Conan the Killer” in French. 

“It does not mean that at all,” he says now. “But in my brain at that age, I just thought it was clever.”

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR SOLDIER WILLIAM JOHNSON IS EXECUTED IN PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA, IN 1864 WILLIAM WAS A NEGRO SOLDIER. HE WAS ACCUSED OF DESERTION, AND WAS HUNG.

 American civil war soldier William Johnson is executed in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864  William was a negro soldier.He was accused of desertion, and was hung.

This site deals with surnames of the wars of the United States, up to the Civil War, and the civilians of the same era. It will also cover the surnames of the Colonial era.

This site is to help all searchers find a lead to their family lines (including Native American ancestors). This site will cover the years from 1700’s to the early 1900’s.

WILLIAM JOHNSON, a col

ored soldier. He deserted from the twenty third United States colored troops, and on the 8th attempted to commit an outrage on a white woman at Cold Harbor.

Considerable importance was given to the affair, in order that the example might be made more effective.

JOHNSON confessed his guilt and was executed within the outer breast works about Petersburg, on an elevation, and in plain view of the enemy, a white flag covering the ceremony.

Johnson also had confessed he had deserted from another unit, but that unit was not stated.

You are viewing unusual images of Petersburg, Virginia, vicinity. The execution of William Johnson, Jordan's farm. William was a negro soldier.

He was accused of desertion, and was hung. This image was taken after the trap door was sprung, and William is shown hanging by the neck. It was taken in 1864 by O'Sullivan, Timothy H., 1840-1882.

LISA MONTGOMERY, THE ONLY WOMAN ON FEDERAL DEATH-ROW, WAS FOUND GUILTY OF AN ESPECIALLY HEINOUS' CRIME-BUT THOSE WHO HAVE LOOKED DEEPLY INTO HER AGONIZED LIFE SEE IT DIFFERENTLY

 Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, was found guilty of an ‘especially heinous’ crime – but those who have looked deeply into her agonized life see it differently

Lisa Montgomery’s first experiences of sexual abuse occurred indirectly when she was three years old.

She would lie in bed at night beside her beloved half-sister Diane, close enough to touch, while Diane, then eight, was being raped by their male babysitter.

At the age of 11, Montgomery learned what it was like to be attacked herself. Her stepfather Jack, a “mean drunk” who regularly beat her and her mother, began raping her once or twice a week.

The assaults became such an important part of Jack’s life over the next four years that he built a room for the girl on the side of their trailer, deep in the Oklahoma woods.

It had its own entrance, so that he could come and go as he desired and nobody would know or hear her screams.

He would rape and sodomise her, often with a pillow smothering her face. When she resisted, he slammed her head so hard against the concrete floor that she suffered traumatic brain injury, MRI brain scans would later show.

One day, her mother Judy happened to enter the room while the child was being assaulted by her husband. Judy was so incensed she fetched a gun and held it to her daughter’s head, screaming: “How could you do this to me?”

Over time, the abuse expanded. Montgomery’s stepfather invited friends round to gang rape her in the room – ordeals that would last for hours and end with the men urinating on her like she was trash.

Her mother got in on the act too, selling Montgomery’s body to the plumber and the electrician whenever she needed odd jobs doing.

These were her formative experiences which doctors, psychologists and social workers have all concluded amounted to torture endured across years.

This is the woman, now aged 52, whom the Trump administration intends to put to death in seven days’ time on grounds that she is such a cold-hearted murderer that even being locked up for the rest of her natural life would be insufficient punishment.

On Friday, a US appeals court cleared the way for the execution to proceed. The move was enthusiastically endorsed by the US justice department which has argued under Trump that Montgomery is guilty of an “especially heinous” crime.

But those who have looked deeply into the agonized life that lay behind her criminal act see it differently.

“This is a story about a woman who is profoundly mentally ill as a result of a lifetime of torture and sexual violence,” said Sandra Babcock,

faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and a consultant to Montgomery’s legal team. “Lisa is not the worst of the worst – she is the most broken of the broken.”

NEW YORK EXECUTED WILLIAM KEMMLER. IT WAS THE FIRST TIME EVER A STATE USED THE ELECTRIC CHAIR TO CARRY OUT AN EXECUTION

 New York executed William Kemmler. It was the first time ever a state used the electric chair to carry out an execution.

Proponents of electrocution - including Thomas Edison - touted the new method as quick, effective, painless, and humane:

 the same arguments later used by legislators to support lethal injection and execution by nitrogen gas.

In May 1890, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kemmler’s challenge that the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment.

“Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death,” the Court wrote. But it said the New York legislature in enacting the electric chair statute had intended “to devise a more humane method” of execution and “presume[d] that the legislature was possessed of the facts upon which it took action.”

The execution proceeded. According to the Buffalo News, Kemmler - who was intellectually disabled - asked corrections officers: “Don’t let them experiment on me more than they ought to.” After an initial 17-second administration of high-voltage electric current, a doctor declared Kemmler dead.

Then Kemmler let out a deep groan and witnesses reportedly screamed “Turn on the current!” Reports of the execution say that “After 2 minutes the execution chamber filled with the smell of burning flesh. 2 of the witnesses fainted.

Several others were overcome with severe attacks of nausea.” Newspapers called the execution a “historic bungle” and “disgusting, sickening and inhuman.”States have carried out 158 executions by electric chair since 1973.

 10 were botched. Virginia was the most recent state to use the electric chair, executing Robert Gleason in January 2013

THE EVENT FOREVER KNOWN AS THE BISBEE MASSACRE TOOK PLACE ON MAIN STREET AT THE CASTANEDA AND GOLDWATER MARCANTILE EMPORIUM ON DECEMBER 8.

The event forever known as the Bisbee Massacre took place on Main Street at the Castaneda and Goldwater Mercantile Emporium on December 8.

given a change of venue? And, why weren’t they given separate trials instead of trying all five men together? Most of the testimony by the witnesses was hearsay and circumstantial.

 Could the court-appointed attorneys have done a job better defending their clients? Did they fear public retribution if they if they represented the defendants too well and planted seeds of doubt in the jury?

There was never any doubt about the outcome. The five men were convicted, found guilty and sentenced to hang on March 28th, a few weeks after the trial ended.

 Because he wasn’t present at the scene of the crime, Heath was tried separately. His trial began immediately after the others were sentenced. 

All five testified that Heath had nothing to do with planning or participating in the Bisbee robbery-murder.

Heath was found guilty of murder but sentenced to life in the territorial prison. On the morning of February 22nd an angry mob stormed the jail, ignoring the five condemned men, took Heath out and hanged him from a telegraph pole on Toughnut Street.

 John Heath was the only man in Tombstone’s wild and wooly history to be lynched.

A few weeks later, on March 29th the five condemned men stood on the scaffold. Each proclaimed his innocence. It would be the largest mass hanging in Arizona history.

CHINA NOTORIOUS FEMALE SERIAL KILLER LAO RONGZHI WAS EXECUTED BY DEATH PENALTY ON MONDAY IN NANCHANG, EAST CHINA'S JIANGXI PROVINCE, GLOBAL TIMES REPORTED.

 China's notorious female serial killer Lao Rongzhi was executed by death penalty on Monday in Nanchang, East China's Jiangxi Province, Global Times reported.

A statement posted by the Jiangxi High People's Court said that it finished the execution on Monday morning after receiving the Supreme Court's approval.

The statement added that the 49-year-old woman was given the right to meet her family members before the execution, China Daily reported. 

Notably, Lao Rongzhi had been on the run for 20 years after being engaged in a series of crimes, including robbery, extortion, and brutal murder of seven people, between 1996 and 1999.

She was arrested by police in Xiamen, Fujian Province, on November 28, 2019. Jiangxi Provincial High People's Court last year upheld her death sentence as it heard her appeal.

During the trial, she claimed her involvement in the crimes stopped at kidnapping and robbery and blamed her ex-boyfriend, who had been executed in 1999, for the murders, South China Morning Post reported. 

The court said that Lao conspired with her ex-boyfriend, Fa Ziying, to kidnap, rob, and murder seven people in four different cities including Nanchang, Wenzhou, Changzhou, and Hefei.

In one case in 1996, they murdered a couple and their three-year-old child before robbing their home.

The court also rejected Lao and her lawyer's claims that she played a minor role in the series of crimes and only assisted her boyfriend. 

During the trial, she also tearfully apologized to the victims' families and offered compensation

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT BY THE EINSATZKOMMANDO 3 MURDERED 17 JEWISH MEN AND 2 JEWISH WOMEN

 Execution carried out by the einsatzkomamdo 3 murdered 17 Jewish men and 2 Jewish women

On Saturday 19 July 1941 or somewhere around this date, Einsatzcommando 3 murdered 17 Jewish men and 2 Jewish women.

Non-Jews killed by the Einsatzcommando: 7. A total of 26 persons died on this location in Kaunas Seventh Fort.

Source of this record: The so-called Jäger Report (full title: Complete tabulation of executions carried out in the Einsatzkommando 3 zone up to December 1, 1941)

was written on 1 December 1941 by Karl Jäger, commander of Einsatzkommando 3 (EK 3), a killing unit of Einsatzgruppe A which was attached to Army Group North during the Operation Barbarossa.

It is the most detailed and precise surviving chronicle of the activities of one individual Einsatzkommando, and a key record documenting the Holocaust in Lithuania as well as in Latvia and Belarus.

The photo is most probably not in this area but an example of German execution units and their work.

THE ARMED ROBBERIES, KIDNAPPING OF ALL FORMS, KILLING FOR RITUALS, MASS KILLINGS AS IN GATHERING IN PLACES OF WORSHIPS AND CANNIBALS.

The armed robberies, kidnappings of all forms, killing for rituals, mass killings as in gathering in places of worships and cannibals.

Never in the annals of our nation has there been such a carnage and utter disregard for human life as we now experience.

The time has called for immediate intervention of government. The government must revert to public execution by firing squads for offences that culminate into forcibly ending of innocent life.

These include bank armed robberies, kidnappings of all forms, killing for rituals, mass killings as in gathering in places of worships and cannibals.

The punishment is to include all aiders and abettors of all the categories of the aforementioned crimes.

The punishment has some attributes if carried out properly. For example those that carried out the dastardly killings in Owo church should be given swift trial and if found guilty should be executed publicly in Owo.

By witnessing the public execution, it will not only serve as deterrent but be seen as being held accountable and justice served in a lawful nation.

All cases of such should be tried and concluded at state capitals with alacrity instead of the Federal Capital.

In order for the punishment to be effective, time is of the essence in meting out punishment close to the time crime was committed.

There is a legal Maxim: Justice delayed is justice denied. If we are to have a country that protects lives and properties as entrenched in the constitution,

then there should the rule of law and violators should be held accountable and punishment should be carried out swiftly and glaringly for people to see.

By doing so and when offenders are held accountable, people will stop seeing kidnapping as a profitable/lucrative business.

Those that were living witnesses to the wave of robberies that followed the civil war in the ‘70s will agree that the situation in the country then was bad for the cultural climate of the time; it was a reign of terror by the armed robbers that is similar to what we have now.

The situation then prompted the military government to promulgate the Firing Squad Decree for any robbery with the use of dangerous weapons such as guns, daggers and even penknives.

The decree went into effect in April of 1971 and notorious armed robber Babatunde  Folorunsho was caught alongside others like William Oyazimo and Joseph Ilobo.

They were tried and found guilty and executed on July 24th 1971 at Lagos Bar beach.

This was soon followed by the trials of dare devil robbers like Dr. Ishola Oyenusi, and Lawrence Anini.

The wave of robberies had spread to the old Kwara State but there was ‘a no nonsense’judicial system.

The names of Justice Adesiyun, Police Inspector Sunday Adewusi and Prosecutor Anthony Ekundayo readily come to mind.

The team made a name for Kwara State as a ‘no go state’ for armed robbers. In their custody then were Lieutenant Usman and Mr.

Felix Dumeh, who were tried and convicted for armed robberies after they were caught with deadly weapons and were publicly executed in Ilorin by firing squad.

The decree served what it was intended for; it deterred others and the wave of robberies died down immediately and for another twenty something years there was peace everywhere in the country until recently when people thought that they could get away with any crime, including murder.

There is too much carnage with reckless abandon of human lives. Effort must be made to take back the country by all means necessary. The country is at the precipice of total destruction where nobody is safe.

SAUDI ARABIA HAS EXECUTED AT LEAST 175 PEOPLE OVER THE PART 12 MONTHS, AN AVERAGE OF ONE PERSON EVERY TWO DAYS, ACCORDING TO AN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT.

 Saudi Arabia has executed at least 175 people over the past 12 months, an average of one person every two days, according to an Amnesty International report.

The 43-page report titled “Killing In the Name of Justice: The Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia” 

said that between January 1985 and June 2015, at least 2,208 people were executed in the kingdom.

An Associated Press tally based on official announcements shows that Saudi Arabia has executed 109 people since January, compared to 83 in all of 2014.

The kingdom follows a strict interpretation of Islamic law and applies the death penalty to a number of crimes including murder, rape and drug smuggling. Even minors can face execution.

“Saudi Arabia’s faulty justice system facilitates judicial executions on a mass scale,” said the acting director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program. 

Amnesty also said that confessions that led to the death sentence were extracted through prolonged torture.

Most executions in Saudi Arabia are carried out by beheading, though some are also done by firing squad. In rare cases, executed bodies have been displayed in public to deter others from committing crime.

Almost half of those executed in the last 30 years were foreign nationals, many of whom could not understand court proceedings and charges because they did not speak the language.

 Almost a third of those executed were for drug-related offences, according to Amnesty.

SAUDI POLICE SURROUND A WOMAN DRESSED IN BLACK ON HER KNEES, JUST BEFORE SHE'S EXECUTED.

 Saudi police surround a woman dressed in black on her knees, just before she's executed.

These secretly filmed images show the public execution of a woman in the streets of the Saudi city of Mecca. 

Taken down from YouTube, internet users have continued sharing the video on other sites. FRANCE 24 has taken the decision to only publish still images taken from the clip.

Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, an immigrant originally from Burma, lived in Saudi Arabia.

 The country's ruling authorities had found her guilty of sexually abusing and killing her seven-year-old stepdaughter.

In the video, several policemen can be seen holding her to the ground in the street. She can be heard shouting and proclaiming her innocence until the moment she's executed, 

when a man strikes her three times with a sword. The woman's screams stop as soon as he strikes her the very first time.

THE STATE RUN SAUDI PRESS AGENCY SAID 81 INMATES, INCLUDING SEVEN YEMENIS AND A SYRIAN, WERE EXECUTED, ALLEGING THAT THE SUSPECTS HAD BEEN CONVICTED OF A VARIETY OF CRIMES

 the state-run Saudi Press Agency said 81 inmates, including seven Yemenis and a Syrian, were executed, alleging that the suspects had been convicted of a variety of crimes,

The latest executions by Saudi authorities in one day exceeded the total number of executions conducted in the Arab kingdom throughout 2021.

According to the announcement, the executions included people “convicted of various crimes, including the murdering of innocent men, women and children.” It also said among the executed were alleged members of the Takfiri terrorist groups of al-Qaeda and Daesh.

Furthermore, a number of purported members of Yemen’s popular Ansarullah movement were among the executed.

The resistance movement has significantly helped the Yemeni army against a Saudi-led military coalition that has been waging a war on the Yemeni nation since March 2015.

The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases.

“The accused were provided with the right to an attorney and were guaranteed their full rights under Saudi law during the judicial process, which found them guilty of committing multiple heinous crimes that left a large number of civilians and law enforcement officers dead,” the Saudi Press Agency said.

“The kingdom will continue to take a strict and unwavering stance against terrorism and extremist ideologies that threaten the stability of the entire world.”

Takfiri terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Daesh are widely believed to have their ideological roots in Wahhabism, the radical ideology dominating Saudi Arabia.

Wahhabism is blamed for forming Takfirism - the practice of denouncing subscribers to other schools of thought as “apostates” and considering their lives to be expendable.

The kingdom’s last mass execution occurred in early January 2016, when Saudi authorities executed 47 people, including prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, who had vociferously called for democracy in the kingdom and advocated anti-regime protests. Nimr had been arrested in Qatif, Eastern Province,  in 2012.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has reportedly executed more than 900 prisoners in an increasing rate. In 2019 alone,

Saudi Arabia set a record number of executions after Saudi authorities executed 184 people, despite a general decrease in the number of executions around the world.

In April 2020, Reprieve, a UK-based non-profit organization, said Saudi Arabia had carried out its 800th execution.

The report added that executions had almost doubled in only five years in comparison with the 423 executions conducted in Saudi Arabia from 2009 through 2014.

THE LOCAL SHERIFF THOUGHT THE MURDER WOULD LEAD INVESTIGATORS BACK TO MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL VIOLENCE. HE DIDN'T RXPECT A U.S. BORDER PATROL AGENT TO BE AMONG THOSE ARRESTED.

 the local sheriff thought the murder would lead investigators back to Mexican drug cartel violence. He didn't expect a U.S. Border Patrol agent to be among those arrested.

When Franky Palacios Paz was found naked and decapitated floating off South Padre Island,

the local sheriff thought the murder would lead investigators back to Mexican drug cartel violence. He didn't expect a U.S. Border Patrol agent to be among those arrested.

The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration.

This part of the project focuses on U.S. law enforcement corruption, which has undermined efforts to secure the border. Sign up to get story alerts.

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — It looked like a crab trap floating in the calm waters of Laguna Madre, just off South Padre Island.

At least, that's what the man who spotted it while boating with his two daughters would tell police.

But when he poked the floating mass with a pole, he discovered otherwise. He dialed 911 and told the South Padre Island Police Department what he'd found: "a headless body floating in the bay."

Blood was still dripping from the neck when Cameron County Sheriff's Deputy Ulises Martinez arrived, he would later report.

It looked to him like the head "had been cut off with one swift motion with a fine sharp cutting instrument."

The grisly discovery came at a busy time on the island. It was March 16, 2015, the frenzied start of Texas Week, when thousands of spring breaking college students descend on Padre to guzzle from beer bongs and get rowdy.

Maybe one drank too much, fell in the water and collided with the wrong end of a propeller-driven barge?

That was an early theory, but Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio, with more than a half-century in law enforcement, sensed something more sinister.

"We're just across the border from Matamoros," he said. Investigators couldn't find the man's head, and there were other suspicious cuts on the body.

Mexican drug cartel payback often comes at the end of a fine, sharp cutting instrument, Lucio observed.

"It's just kind of the way that they handle people," he said. "They take revenge that way."

Luckily, the body still had hands. Using a portable fingerprint reader from U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, police quickly matched the prints to Jose Francisco Palacios Paz.

Before he was found naked and decapitated days after his 33rd birthday, Palacios Paz — "Franky" to his friends — worked at Veteran's Tire Shop in Edinburg, one county over.

In no time, authorities came to suspect that tire repair wasn't the only thing going on there.

It's where they think Franky — about to rat out a drug trafficking operation with links to the powerful Mexican Gulf Cartel — met his end.

Over the ensuing weeks, the investigation led authorities on a meandering journey through the Gulf Cartel's internal bloodletting, featuring tales of a supposed double-crossing cartel hitman, a U.S.-

born narco turned folk legend and a major mafia capo nicknamed "Commander Pussy" now locked up in a federal prison in Houston, Texas.

And by last summer, they had arrested four of Franky's tire shop associates on murder and drug trafficking charges.

AUTHORITIES ANNOUNCED ON SUNDAY THAT THE CENTRAL CRIMINALS COURT ISSUED DEATH SENTENCES FOR NINE PEOPLE WHO WERE CHARGED FOR INVOLVEMENT IN THE SPEICHER MASSACRE.

 authorities announced on Sunday that the Central Criminal Court issued death sentences for nine people who were charged for involvement in the Speicher Massacre.

After occupying much of northern and western of Iraq, ISIS shocked the nation on June 12, 2014, by killing over 1,500 cadets and other personnel at Camp Speicher, being used then as a military academy near Salahuddin province's Tikrit.

In video footage released online by the group, gunmen were seen executing captives with a single, close-range shot to the head before dumping their bodies into the Tigris River or into shallow graves.

The Iraqi judiciary claimed in a statement that the suspects who were sentenced to death "admitted they had participated" in perpetrating the massacre.

In August 2016, Iraqi authorities executed 36 out of 50 ISIS affiliates in a single day for perpetrating the mass murder.

It is not known exactly how many suspects in the massacre are in Iraqi prisons now, or how many are likely to face the death penalty.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has previously pledged to establish a museum to commemorate the victims of the Speicher Massacre.

MORE THAN 100 INDIVIDUALS HAVE BEEN EXECUTED IN IRAQ SINCE JANUARY, WITH A STAGGERING 8000 MORE ON DEATH ROW, ACCORDING TO IRAQ'S UN-APPROVED HUMAN RIGHT BODY.

 More than 100 individuals have been executed in Iraq since January, with a staggering 8,000 more on death row, according to Iraq's UN-approved human rights body.

The execution figures came from Iraqi Ministry of Justice data that was reviewed by the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, according to one commission member.

"According to the data of the Iraqi Justice Ministry that have been reviewed by the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights,

over 100 people have been executed in Iraq," Hemin Bajalan told Rudaw English on Sunday. "There are 8,022 prisoners in Iraq convicted with execution."

Iraq has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, and is ranked in the top four along with Iran, Saudi Arabia and China, according to Human Rights Watch's 2019 report, which documented the year prior.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government has not made public the number of executions it carried out this year, according to the watchdog.

"Iraqi authorities handed down hundreds of death sentences to those convicted under counterterrorism legislation and carried out executions without publicizing any official numbers or sharing this information with international actors," Human Rights Watch report read. 

The trials were also rushed and were sometimes based on a single confession or missing victims' testimonies, according to the report.

The 100 plus figure marks a big increase in Iraqi executions. In 2018, more than 52 recorded executions took place in Iraq, according to a report from Amnesty International. 

The more than 8,000 people with death sentences is also a striking increase from 2018.

At the end of that year, Amnesty reported that there were more than 285 people with death sentence.

Iraqi security forces captured Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS) in late 2017, and subsequently put its alleged members and affiliates on trial.

The US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria have also transferred hundreds of ISIS fighters into Iraqi custody. 

Iraq is known to have conducted fast trials for ISIS members, often without sufficient evidence.

One member of parliament said Iraq is asking Western countries to take back their citizens who joined ISIS.

"There are many foreign ISIS fighters in Iraqi prisons, and Iraq is frequently demanding the western countries to take back their citizens who are Daesh militants,"

Bakhtiyar Shawis, a member of the parliament's human rights committee, told Rudaw English, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym.

GERMAN SOLDIER WHO HUNG HIMSELF AT THE END OF THE WARRAY CUNNEENS UNIT CAME ACROSS THIS GERMAN SOLDIER IN THE WOODS.

 German soldier who hung himself at the end of the warRay Cunneen’s unit came across this German soldier in the woods.

He had evidently hung himself when Germany surrendered, 1945

Jack Cummings posed on the lawn in his uniform, hands clasped behind his back, his Army cap perched on his head at a jaunty angle.

His father, Leo, or his mother, Helen, had probably said, “Stand over there, Jack, while I take a picture.”

John B. “Jack” Cummings was 22, a handsome college man headed off to World War II from Juneau, Wisc., where his family, no doubt, prayed he would return.

But on Dec. 31, 1944, near the French village of Neuhaeusel on the Rhine River, he vanished from his foxhole, leaving behind a bloody piece of his skull and a helmet with a bullet hole in it.

For the next 74 years — until this summer — he was missing in action, his body declared non-recoverable.

He existed largely in old military files filled with dental charts, plaintive letters from his mother, and typed reports about the Army’s futile attempts to account for him.

Army Pvt. John B. Cummings, who was killed during World War II and who was listed as unrecoverable, was buried with honors beside his parents after his remains were found and identified this year.

(Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) (N/A/Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency )

Jack Cummings posed on the lawn in his uniform, hands clasped behind his back, his Army cap perched on his head at a jaunty angle.

His father, Leo, or his mother, Helen, had probably said, “Stand over there, Jack, while I take a picture.”

John B. “Jack” Cummings was 22, a handsome college man headed off to World War II from Juneau, Wisc., where his family, no doubt, prayed he would return.

But on Dec. 31, 1944, near the French village of Neuhaeusel on the Rhine River, he vanished from his foxhole, leaving behind a bloody piece of his skull and a helmet with a bullet hole in it.

For the next 74 years — until this summer — he was missing in action, his body declared non-recoverable.

He existed largely in old military files filled with dental charts, plaintive letters from his mother, and typed reports about the Army’s futile attempts to account for him.

“Complete negative findings,” a 1947 Army report stated.

But a year earlier, the solitary grave of a slain GI had been discovered across the Rhine River in the German town of Iffezheim.

He had been killed near Neuhaeusel by an enemy raiding party that had attacked across the river.

His body had been brought back over the Rhine and buried under a wooden cross that read “Hier Ruht ein U.S.A. — Soldat gef. am 31.12.1944”: “Here rests a U.S.A. soldier,” who fell on Dec. 31, 1944.

For seven decades, as his parents mourned, aged, and then passed away, and his sister, Mary Ellen, married and had 12 children, no one knew that the anonymous “U.S.A.-Soldat” was John B. Cummings.

BENITO MUSSOLINI WAS CAPTURED BY ITALIAN PARTISANS IN THE VILLAGE OF GIULINO DI MEZZEGRA.

 Benito Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra. 

After being caught, Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were taken to a nearby villa and shot dead by a firing squad.

Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe. 

The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan. 

However, since the end of the war, the circumstances of Mussolini's death, and the identity of his executioner, have been subjects of continuing dispute and controversy in Italy.

In 1940, Mussolini took his country into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany but soon was met with military failure.

 By the autumn of 1943, he was reduced to being the leader of a German puppet state in northern Italy and was faced with the Allied advance from the south and an increasingly violent internal conflict with the partisans. 

In April 1945, with the Allies breaking through the last German defences in northern Italy and a general uprising of the partisans taking hold in the cities, Mussolini's situation became untenable. 

On 25 April he fled Milan, where he had been based, and headed towards the Swiss border.

 He and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured on 27 April by local partisans near the village of Dongo on Lake Como. Mussolini and Petacci were executed the following afternoon, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide.

The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the Piazzale Loreto, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. 

They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave but, in 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by fascist supporters.

 Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. 

Eventually, in 1957, his remains were allowed to be interred in the Mussolini family crypt in his home town of Predappio.

 His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for neo-fascists and the anniversary of his death is marked by neo-fascist rallies.

In the post-war years, the "official"[note 1] version of Mussolini's death has been questioned in Italy (although not internationally, in general) in a manner that has drawn comparison with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. 

Some journalists, politicians and historians, doubting the veracity of Audisio's account, have advanced a wide variety of theories and speculation as to how Mussolini died and who was responsible.

 At least twelve different individuals have, at various times, been claimed to be the killer. These have included Luigi Longo and Sandro Pertini who subsequently became general secretary of the Italian Communist Party and President of Italy respectively. 

Some writers believe that Mussolini's death was part of a Special Operations Executive operation, with the supposed aim of retrieving compromising "secret agreements" and correspondence with Winston Churchill that Mussolini had allegedly been carrying when he was captured.

 However, the "official" explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative.

39 YEAR OLD ATAH OTHMAN, OTHMAN WAS ONE OF THE PRO- PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS AT UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA. OTHMAN WAS ARRESTED FOR POSSESSION OF A FIREARM ON SCHOOL PROPERTY.

39 year-old Atah Othman. Othman was one of the pro-Palestinian protesters at University of South Florida. Othman was arrested for possession of a firearm on school property.

According to university officials, between 75 and 100 protesters, including students and non-students, showed up with several items, including wood shields, umbrellas, and tents.

USF officials said SDS had been placed on interim suspension last week after causing a disruption on campus and, therefore, couldn't hold events.

The university's policy also didn't allow for tents on campus without permission, which they say students had violated.

The Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee released a statement commending USF's response to the protests, saying in part:

"The Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee applauds the University of South Florida 

(USF) and its President Reah Law, for enforcing USF policies and preventing a small group of agitators from harassing Jewish students on campus and disrupting the education of thousands of students."

A CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT OF HOW ALFRED THE GREAT DEALT WITH CAPTURED VIKING RAIDER, THE BATTLE PEAR-SHAPED AS THEIR SHIPS WERE NOT WELL SUITED TO FIGHTING IN SHALLOW WATERS

 a contemporary account of how Alfred the Great dealt with captured Viking raiders:The battle pear-shaped as their ships were not well suited to fighting in shallow waters.

This quote is from a larger passage in the chronicle, which describes a battle between Alfred's newly commissioned fleet and a small group of six Viking ships. 

The battle went pear-shaped for the English, as their ships were not well suited to fighting in shallow waters.  

Eventually, with both sides suffering losses, a few raiding ships escaped, leaving two undermanned ships being driven ashore on the coast of Sussex. 

The raiders were brought before the king and hanged, probably in front of a large audience, allowing Alfred to publicly play his role as protector of his people and their shared religion. 

Any captured Viking raider across Europe could probably expect similar treatment.

The more famous story regarding the capture of a Viking raider is the death of Ragnar Lothbrok (c. 865).

 Leading a small raiding party into Northumbria, he and his followers were defeated by the army of King Ælle, 

who ordered Ragnar's capture and execution by dropping him into a snake pit. This story is mainly a myth created in the 13th century.

 However, it again demonstrates that raiders were expected to be put to death, and it was the duty of the king in question to ensure royal justice was delivered upon those who attacked his kingdom, particularly pagans.