honestly you could make a logical argument for the tortured death of the guilty (obviously it would need to be smoking gun sure of 100% guilt, and I would give the guilty pain killers secretly because its about putting fear into other people than sadistic torture) you need something that would scare anyone with a propensity to do this sort of thing from doing it, it's terrorism but it works

example: In October 1985, a radical Muslim Brotherhood splinter group kidnapped four Soviet diplomats in Beirut. By the time Russian special forces reached the city, one of the diplomats had already been executed.

As Moscow’s policy was never to negotiate with terrorists, no effort was made to do so. Using a network of informants, the Russians identified the militant group responsible and the kidnappers involved.

With the kidnappers’ names in hand, the Russians immediately rounded up their family members, taking them hostage. They then cut off hostages’ body parts, delivering them to the militants along with the threat to continue making deliveries.

The militants got the message. The surviving Russian diplomats were immediately released. For two decades thereafter, Russian diplomats operated safely abroad without fear of becoming targets of Muslim terrorists.

to understand why this could actually be the most virtuous action available you have to understand opportunity costs and what these actions more likely than not prevented

spez:typo