NUR-SULTAN – The government of Kazakhstan has abolished the capital punishment, after a nearly 20-year freeze on death penalty in the Central Asian country, a notice on the presidential website said on Saturday.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had signed off on parliamentary ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a document that commits signatories to the abolition of capital punishment.
Мемлекет басшысы «Өлім жазасының күшін жоюға бағытталған Азаматтық және саяси құқықтар туралы халықаралық пактіге Екінші Факультативтік Хаттаманы ратификациялау туралы» Қазақстан Республикасының Заңына қол қойды.
Заңның мәтіні баспасөзде жарияланады.
— Ақорда Баспасөз қызметі (@AkordaPress) January 2, 2021
Executions were paused in Kazakhstan from 2003 but courts continued to sentence convicts to death in exceptional circumstances, including for crimes deemed “acts of terror”.
Ruslan Kulekbayev, a lone gunman who killed eight policemen and two civilians during a rampage in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty in 2016, was among the convicts set to be executed if the moratorium were lifted.
Kulekbayev will serve a life sentence in jail instead.
Life imprisonment was introduced in Kazakhstan in 2004 as an alternative punishment.
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