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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.

Texas exonerates death row inmate after DNA tests

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September 18, 2008: a man on death row in Texas for 14 years for the murder of a young girl has been exonerated after DNA tests, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reported.

Michael Blair, sentenced to death for the 1993 killing of seven-year-old Ashley Estell, had his capital murder charges dismissed by the Collin County court after hair used as evidence to convict him, was shown to belong to somebody else.

"The Plano police department is now reinvestigating the 15-year-old case to find the true killer," the center said in a statement.

"The DNA evidence that cleared Blair indicates that another man, now deceased, is a plausible suspect in the girl's death."

Blair, who remains in prison for convictions in other crimes, is the fourth person to be exonerated from death row in 2008, and brings the total number of death row exonerations to 130 since 1973, according to an "innocence list" compiled by the DPIC.

Sources: DPIC, Dallasnews.com, 18/09/2008
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