Following his meeting with Secretary General of the...

Following his meeting with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer, Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov refused to admit a direct link between the abolishment of the death penalty and commitment to democratic values.At a news conference following his meeting with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer, Ustinov said a democratic country is not necessarily the one that has renounced the death penalty. He invoked the case of notorious serial killer Chikatilo, who a Russian court found guilty of murdering more than 55 children, to back his argument. "If we had abolished the Chikatilo's death penalty, public opinion would not have approved it," he said. Schwimmer, who raised the issue of Russia's ratification of a protocol to the European convention of human rights and fundamental freedoms banning the death penalty, argued, however, that neither lack nor maintenance of this punishment seemed to effectively discourage murderers.