If the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, goes ahead with plans to livestream the execution of a soldier radicalised to extremist Islam who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas, his country will join a motley assembly of lesser powers and rogue actors who have conducted public executions in recent years.
Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International.
