Belarus, first death sentence of 2021 passed

2021-01-15T18:19:05.840Z

The Minsk District Court issued the first death sentence in 2021 against a 30-year-old accused of murdering two pensioners. The man had already been sentenced to death in 2020, but the Supreme Court had abolished the sentence, demanding a review of the trial. Now the Minsk court has upheld the sentence. Belarus is the only country in Europe and the CIS where the death penalty applies. According to Belarusian criminal law, the death penalty can be imposed for particularly serious crimes - such as the use of weapons of mass destruction, for starting a war, for genocide, international terrorism, murder, seizure of power, for an attack terrorist, for the murder of a law enforcement officer and high treason. The execution can only be imposed on men aged between 18 and 65 and is carried out by shooting.