The High Court of Barbados granted a stay of execution...

The High Court of Barbados granted a stay of execution for four prisoners who were to have been hanged on July 2 in the Caribbean nation's first executions since 1984.
Chief Justice Colin Williams granted the stay until July 26 for the four convicted murderers - Michael Huggins, 27, Frederick Atkins, 31, Lennox Boyce, 25 and Jeffrey Joseph, 27. The ruling allows the men to appeal before Britain's Privy Council.
Williams did not say why he granted the delay, but the July 26 date is the same as the deadline given the defence by prosecution lawyers in London to file their appeals to the Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for some former British colonies.
A marshal read death warrants to the four on June 26 after Barbados' Mercy Committee turned down their appeals for clemency.
Andrew Pilgrim, the lead defence attorney for the men, said he was surprised by the government's reading of the warrants before the men had completed the appeals process.
Defence lawyers filed requests in Barbados High Court on June 27 that the executions be postponed.
The British Privy Council has frustrated Caribbean countries' efforts to execute prisoners by granting clemency in several cases over the past decade. The last hangings in Barbados were in 1984.
The death penalty issue has been widely discussed in the region since the Privy Council ruled in March that death sentences were unconstitutional in seven Caribbean states.
The ruling increased resolve by Caribbean countries to form a regional supreme court and scrap their 170-year relationship with the Privy Council, which they accuse of hindering efforts to enforce the death penalty.
In many countries of the English-speaking Caribbean, a majority of the population supports the death penalty as a deterrent to rampant violent crime.