Belarusian Interior Minister Uladzimir Navumaw was...

Belarusian Interior Minister Uladzimir Navumaw was reported as saying:
"At present the death penalty is resorted to in Belarus as a truly exceptional measure. No more than seven individuals have been sentenced to death in Belarus annually over the last five years. It is a miniscule percentage of the people convicted of serious crimes. This year five people have been sentenced to death and have been executed. There will be no more executions this year. One of the individuals had killed five people in Pershamayski district of Minsk. He had three previous convictions for other crimes. Can such a person mend his ways? I think the answer is obvious. The death penalty is used in exceptional cases like that. I think that it is totally justified in such cases. Belarus like many other countries has an alternative to the death sentence, namely life imprisonment. Of the 104 people currently on death row, a third prefer the death penalty. Does the death penalty deter criminals? It definitely does."