In the new Criminal Code of Armenia, adopted by the...

In the new Criminal Code of Armenia, adopted by the National Assembly at the first reading, the death penalty has been abolished. The head of the parliamentary commission on state-legal affairs Viktor Dallakian made the statement with reference to the comments of the CE Secretary General Walter Schwimmer concerning the necessity of immediate abolition of the death penalty in Armenia. Dallakyan said that under the bill, capital punishment would be abolished on the date of the bill's adoption. The deputy said the abolition of the death penalty won't apply to the people already sentenced to the capital punishment. The main stumbling-block to the abolition of the death penalty in Armenia is the fate of those accused of the terrorist act on the Armenian Parliament. According to Viktor Dallakian, the death penalty must apply to them.As for the 40 prisoners, already sentenced to death, Dallakian thinks that this problem may be settled by one of two variants - exclusion of this point from the project of the Criminal Code or and amnesty by a decree of the president.