Nguyễn Ngọc Loan in the context of National Broadcasting Company

In civil and military jurisprudence, summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial. The term results from the legal concept of summary justice to punish a summary offense, as in the case of a drumhead court-martial, but the term usually denotes the summary execution of a sentence of death. Under international law, it is defined as a combatant's refusal to accept an opponent's lawful surrender and the combatant's provision of no quarter, by killing the surrendering opponents.

Summary executions have been practiced by governments and paramilitary organizations during both peacetime and war, and is usually associated with war crimes and political persecution.

Saigon Execution is a 1968 photograph by Associated Press photojournalist Eddie Adams, taken during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. It depicts South Vietnamese police chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan shooting Viet Cong captain Nguyễn Văn Lém near the Ấn Quang Pagoda in Saigon. The photograph was published extensively by American news media the next day, and would later win Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and the 1968 World Press Photo of the Year.