[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

May 24


KAZAKHSTAN:

Constitutional Council proposes to keep death penalty for terrorism


The Constitutional Council of RK proposes to keep the death penalty as a
measure of punishment for terrorism. Svetlana Bychkova, member of the
Constitutional Council of RK, has stated this at a meeting of the working
group for improvement of legal system and law enforcement, National
Commission for Democratisation and Civic Society Development, Kazakhstan
Today correspondent reports.

"We believe that the death penalty may be abolished for all kinds of
crimes, apart from terrorism, because there are no measures against this
crime so far," - she said.

Mrs. Bychkova explained in her interview to Kazakhstan Today correspondent
that "keeping death penalty for separate types of crimes contradicts the
facultative protocol on the abolition of death penalty, which can
influence the possibility of Kazakhstan's OSCE chairmanship in 2009. This
problem concerns not only Kazakhstan, no country in the world has found an
adequate substitution to the death penalty as a punishment for terrorist
activities. The most visible example occurred in Russia during the court
hearing against a participant of Beslan school occupation, when the
Russian General Prosecution required death penalty for him."

At the same time a chairperson of a human rights organisation that
participated in the state commission expressed an opinion that it is
necessary to legalise the death penalty abolition. "Virtually it has been
abolished after the introduction of the death penalty moratorium in
Kazakhstan - both de facto and de jure."

The death penalty moratorium was introduced in Kazakhstan as from 1
January, 2004.

(source: Gazeta.kz)