BELARUS. MINISTRY AGAINST ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

the full abolition of the death penalty in Belarus in favor of life imprisonment would not be helpful, though the number of death sentences is declining, reporters were told at the corrections department of the Belarusian Interior Ministry.
"It is essential to apply capital punishment today because it has a dissuading effect on criminals," a ministry spokesman said.
"There are crimes that should not be regarded from a humane point of view," he said. "Criminals who have a record of 5-6 murders should be shot because the state will fail to reform them in any case," he added.
"The talk of humanity can probably be justified, but what about the families of those whose relatives or friends were brutally murdered," the spokesman said.
Besides, "the trials on such cases nowadays are rarely marred by errors," the spokesman concluded. The spokesman stressed that the death penalty in Belarus was an exceptional form of punishment. "The number of executions in Belarus is declining with every year."