In 1996, the then President Boris Yeltsin imposed a...

In 1996, the then President Boris Yeltsin imposed a moratorium on the use of capital punishment when Russia joined the Council of Europe on February 28 of that year. Russia's Constitution states that death sentences can still be handed down but that any defendant in a capital case can demand the presence of a jury rather than a judge alone. Russian officials say that no death sentences have been carried out since August 1996. Russia pledged to scrap the death penalty by the end of February 1999 to secure Council of Europe membership. Yeltsin was forced to impose the execution ban after the Duma refused to abolish capital punishment. In December 1998, Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov sent the Government a draft bill which proposed changing the maximum penalty for serious crimes to life imprisonment or a 25-year sentence.