Crimes punishable by death are: premeditated murder, sorcery, treason, spying, attempt on the Chief of State's life and cannibalism

Crimes punishable by death are: premeditated murder, sorcery, treason, spying, attempt on the Chief of State's life and cannibalism.
Burundi, like its neighbour Rwanda, has seen several outbreaks of violence between the dominating minority Tutsi ethnic group and the majority Hutus since independence from Belgium in 1962, when it became an independent kingdom. Over 500,000 people died, and several hundred thousands were displaced in the depositions, assassinations, rebellions, massacres and coups that followed.
In 1993, Burundi held its first democratic elections, taking to power its first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, and a parliament dominated by the Hutu Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu) party. Within months however, Ndadaye was assassinated, and a decade of Hutu-Tutsi violence began. The next president, Hutu Cyprien Ntaryamira, was killed in a plane crash together with his Rwandan counterpart in 1994. Parliament then appointed as president speaker Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, who was deposed in 1996 by Tutsi leader Pierre Buyoya.
Regional leaders, at a summit on 31 July 1996, imposed sanctions on Burundi in an effort to bring the conflict to an end. The Arusha Peace Process was initiated by the late Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, and facilitated by Nelson Mandela after Nyerere’s death in December 1999. Sanctions were suspended in January 1999 in recognition of progress made.
On August 28, 2000 a peace agreement was signed in Arusha, Tanzania, by nineteen parties including six of the rebel groups. Four rebel groups refused to sign. Three of these later signed ceasefires.
The Arusha Accord provides for a 36 month transition period during which a transitional government would undertake several security and stabilisation measures and prepare for national elections. A power-sharing transitional government was inaugurated on November 1, 2001.
As stipulated in the Accord, Buyoya, who had led the Government for the first 18 month period handed power to his Hutu Vice-President, Domitien Ndayizeye, on April 30, 2003 for the second 18 months of the transition.
In April 2003 Burundi's transitional national parliament also voted unanimously to recognise the statute of the International Criminal Court, the United Nation's permanent war crimes court.
Presidential elections due in November 2004, were delayed till after a referendum on a new constitution can take place. The draft constitution sets out a power-sharing arrangement designed to satisfy both ethnic Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-led army. A referendum was slated for December 22, 2004, but the Electoral Commission postponed it indefinitely as work on an electoral register had not been completed.
The vote on the new constitution is seen as a key step towards finally ending over a decade of civil war.
In January 2005, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up by presidential decree. The Commission was given an initial two-year mandate to investigate political crimes committed between 1962 and 2000.
One Hutu rebel group - the National Liberation Forces (FNL) led by Agathon Rwasa - remained active in Burundi at the start of 2005, operating in the outskirts of the capital Bujumbura. All the other Hutu rebel groups began a process of integration with the traditionally-Tutsi dominated army to form a new national army. Reform of the army was one of the key rebel demands during the peace process.
More than 600 people were sentenced to death in Burundi for violent crimes committed between 1993 and April 2003.
62 executions were carried out in 1999. In 2000 two soldiers were executed for murder without having had legal representation during their trial or the chance to appeal their convictions. There were no executions in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.