Capital crimes are: premeditated murder, torture, aggravated theft, treason and offences against the State. Niger has not imposed the death penalty since 1976.

Capital crimes are: premeditated murder, torture, aggravated theft, treason and offences against the State. Niger has not imposed the death penalty since 1976.
Following over 40 years of independence, since 1960, Niger’s National Assembly adopted a new criminal code in May 2003. The new code introduced punishments of death for infringement of international humanitarian laws such as crimes against humanity, slavery, summary executions, deportation and torture.
The death penalty is also provided for in the military justice code adopted in December 2002. The code established a military court to deal with crimes of a military nature. The last death sentences were passed in July and August 1985, according to AI, when 12 Tuaregs, arrested after an attack on Tchin Tabaraden police station, were sentenced to death by an emergency military court. Seven of the 12 had their sentence commuted to lifetime imprisonment by President Ali Saïbou in November 1987. This sentence was reduced to 30 years in July 1988. The last executions were those of Commander Bayéré Moussa, Captain Sidi Mohamed and Ahmed Mouddour, general secretary of the trade union confederation UNTN. They were sentenced to death by the State Security Court for their participation in the attempted coup d’état of March 1976. At this trial, six other people were also sentenced to death, two in their absence, but they were subsequently pardoned.
In February 2011, during the Universal Periodic Review process by the UN Council of Human Rights, Niger accepted recommendations to introduce an official moratorium on the death penalty and to resubmit an abolition bill to the new Parliament once it is established and to abolish death sentences for persons under the age of 18. With regard to recommendations to abolish the death penalty, Niger responded that it had designed a public campaign in three stages in order to prepare the passage of an abolition law and an accession to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. Stage 1 consists in raising public awareness on death penalty issues among religious leaders, traditional chiefs, NGOs, political parties and state bodies. Stage 2 consists in ensuring public support, and stage 3 involves submitting the abolition bill to a vote. Niger explained that the three stages had not been completed when the abolition bill had been presented to the Consultative Council in 2010, and that as a result, opposition had been divided between those who thought a wider public debate necessary before any decision was taken, and those who considered that abolition was not a preoccupation of the Niger people and was the result of lobbying by certain international organizations. However, the government noted that there is an abolitionist movement in Niger, and that Niger had ratified every other international human rights treaty. The government stated that it would re-engage the above strategies in order to successfully pass a law abolishing the death penalty.
On December 18, 2007 Niger abstained on the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.
On December 20, 2012, Niger abstained on the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.