Contemporary use of capital punishment by country

According to Amnesty International, 25 countries are known to have performed executions in 2015, three more than in 2014. There are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China and North Korea.

Country	Total executed (2015)
China	1,000+
Iran	977+
Pakistan	326
Saudi Arabia	158+
United States	28
Iraq	26+
Somalia	25+
Egypt	22+
Indonesia	14
Chad	10
Yemen	8+
Taiwan	6
Sudan	5+
Bangladesh	4
Singapore	4
Sudan	3
Japan	3
Jordan	2
Oman	2
Afghanistan	1
India	1
United Arab Emirates	1
Vietnam	Unknown
Malaysia	Unknown
North Korea	Unknown

Methods

The following methods of execution were used in 2010:

Beheading (Saudi Arabia, Qatar);

Electric chair (as an option in Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma and Kentucky in the USA);

Gas chamber (California, Missouri and Arizona in the USA);

Hanging (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority, Lebanon (not enforced), Yemen, Egypt, India, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Malawi, Liberia, Chad, Washington in the USA);

Lethal injection (Guatemala, Thailand, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, most states in the USA that are using capital punishment);

Shooting (the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, North Korea, Indonesia, Yemen, and in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Utah).

The longest term of detention waiting for exucation

In 1948, the Japanese Sadamichi Hirasawa was accused of poisoning bank employees with cyanide. And he did so that to steal $ 370. He died in prison “Sendai” at the age of 94 years, after 39 years on death row.

The longest terms of imprisonment

July 27, 1989, Bangkok Criminal Court, Thailand, sentenced Chamoy Thipyaso and 7 of her aides each to 141,078 years in prison for the multimillion-dollar fraud in banking operations.

The most severe sentence - 21 life sentences and 12 death executions - was imposed on the American John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (1942-1994). The maniac loved to earn money on children’s festivities by dressing up in a clown red wig. For that Gacy was called later “the Clown Killer”. He ravaged only 6 years (1972-1978), but in that time he managed to rape and to kill 33 young men. Once the offender was arrested, police found 27 dead bodies in the basement of his house in Illinois. The rest of his victims were found later in the river. In 1980, the murderer was sentenced to death by the court in Chicago, but the sentence was executed only 14 years later (May 1994) by a lethal injection.