Capital punishment

Gerard Fesch was 40 when he learned his father, Jacques Fesch, had been executed for murder in France.

It’s not an interview a journalist gets to do every day — with an executioner. The BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil got that chance when she sat down with Sabir Massih, 32, who’s hanged nearly 50 people since Pakistan reinstated the death penalty. He tells Khalil what goes through his mind when he pulls the lever.

The nuclear deal is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Iran. Amnesty International reports that Iran’s execution tally is alarmingly high — and at this rate, this year’s death count may reach 1000.

Lethal injections don’t happen without specific drugs, but when a favorite drug of the prison system became harder to get, prisons went looking abroad and found the product through sketchy dealers and by lying to drug companies.

People of faith have looked to scripture and religious tradition to argue against putting the admitted Boston Marathon bomber on death row. But capital punishment, even for those guilty of murder, is a complex and divisive issue for all three major monotheistic religions.