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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.

CHINA HEARS DEATH ROW DEFENSE BY VIDEO FOR FIRST TIME

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April 25, 2008: China's top court interrogated a death penalty defendant via a video link for the first time since a key legal reform aimed at cutting wrongful executions, Xinhua news agency said.

The reform, prompted by public outcries over a series of high-profile and wrong death sentences in recent years, had nevertheless greatly increased the workload of the top court, Chinese media have said.

"The Supreme People's Court judges have had to travel to places across the country to meet the defendants. It is both time-consuming and costly," Xinhua quoted an unnamed official from the top court as saying.

The top court questioned Jiang Huaquan, sentenced to death for drug trafficking in the southeastern province of Fujian, from Beijing through a video link, Xinhua said. "Distance interrogation can not only ensure face-to-face communication but also ... boost efficiency of the final review work maximally," the official said.

The questioning process would be recorded and judges would still travel to detention centres to personally meet defendants when necessary, the official said.

Source: Reuters, 25/04/2008
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