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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Saudi Arabia performs 84th beheading in 2015

Public beheading in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani national sentenced to death for drug smuggling on May 17.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said that brings to 84 the number of executions in the kingdom this year.

The ministry said in a statement that Iftikhar Ahmed Mohammed Anayat was found guilty of attempting to traffic heroin into Saudi Arabia in balloons concealed in his stomach. 

He was executed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for its use of the death penalty despite criticism from human rights watchdogs.

Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia among the world's top three executioners in 2014.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality, and armed robbery are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of Islamic Shari'a law.

Source: Agence France-Presse, May 17, 2015

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