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PACE president expresses “deep” concern about recent death sentence pronounced in Belarus

The president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has expressed “deep” concern about the most recent death sentence passed on a young man in Belarus on June 29.

"The death penalty is a flagrant violation of human rights. It does not serve, but denies justice,” PACE President Lluis Maria de Puig said in a statement. “No crime could justify it.”

The Brest Regional Court found the 30-year-old man guilty of murdering and robbing six old women in villages near the town of Drahichyn, Brest region.

On June 23, PACE voted to restore the Belarusian parliament’s Special Guest status in the Assembly on condition that Minsk declares a moratorium on the death penalty.

The PACE president said: “This new condemnation to death shows the urgent need for such a moratorium for as long as the legal system still provides for capital punishment.”

He called on the Belarus authorities not to carry out the sentence and to take the necessary steps to introduce a moratorium, thereby demonstrating their determination to draw closer to the Council of Europe's values and standards.

Mr. de Puig welcomed the decision recently announced by Viktar Huminski, chairman of the standing committee on national security in the House of Representatives, to set up a working group of the lower parliamentary house to draw up proposals regarding the declaration of a moratorium on the death penalty.

“The obstacles which have so far prevented abolition of the death penalty can and must be overcome; European experience has shown this to be possible,” the president said.

PACE granted special guest status to the Belarusian legislature in 1992. Due to a lack of progress in terms of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, this status was suspended in 1997, and Belarus' request for membership of the Council of Europe was frozen the following year. //BelaPAN