Vietnam abolished the death penalty for eight crimes, including spying, bribery and an attempt to overthrow the government. On Wednesday, the state media informed about it, TASR writes according to AFP. The number of crimes for which the death penalty is threatened will be reduced from 18 to ten from July, the official Bao Chinh Phu report reported.
The throat offenses will no longer include sabotage of state facilities, production and trade in counterfeit medicines, illegal transport of narcotic drugs, sabotage of peace and warfare and embezzlement of property. Their perpetrators will be convicted instead for life.
The Minister of Public Security Luong said that “the current structure of the death penalty is problematic and in some cases it does not correspond to the developing socio-economic conditions and the reality of crime prevention”.
As he said Minister of Justice Nguyen Hai Ninh, in most cases they were not sentenced to death for these crimes actually executed. “The abolition of death penalties for several crimes will also be beneficial for international cooperation, especially when Vietnam promotes closer relations based on mutual trust,” Ninh said.
In Vietnam, the death penalty has been carried out by a deadly injection since 2013, until then it was executed by shooting. The country does not disclose the number of executions, according to the estimates of the non -governmental organization Amnesty International, by the end of 2023 Vietnam was in the death cells of more than 1,200 people.
