President Askar Akayev established a two-year moratorium on executions

On December 5, 1998, then President Askar Akayev established a two-year moratorium on executions that was subsequently renewed annually. The last presidential decree keeping it in place was issued in January 2004. At the time the moratorium was first established there were 55 people on death row.
Very little information is available the death penalty system in Kyrgyzstan as everything concerning it is shrouded in secrecy. There are 35 prisons, only 5 of which can really be considered such. In the Penitentiary Number One in Bishkek, death row is identified by the name "Corridor No. 6" (a throwback to Stalinism).
Legal steps have been taken to restrict the use of the death penalty and move towards abolition.
A new Penal Code, which entered into force in January 1998, drastically reduced the number of capital crimes. Only terrorism, treason, premeditated murder, rape, aggravated crimes and certain offences under the Military Penal Code now carried the death penalty. Before 1998, over 30 articles of the former Soviet state’s criminal code prescribed the death penalty.
An amendment to the new Penal Code signed by Akayev on March 23, 2004, further cut capital crimes down to three: aggravated murder, rape of underage children and genocide.
The move was part of Kyrgyzstan’s human rights programme adopted in January 2002, which set 2010 as the target date for the abolition of the death penalty. Women and children are exempt from capital punishment.
On January 15, 2004, Kyrgyz Justice Minister Kurmanbek Osmonov said that the death penalty in Kyrgyzstan could be abolished as early as 2006.
On January 15, 2005 Kyrgyzstan extended its moratorium on the execution of death sentences until December 31, 2005.
Akayev’s government fell under a popular revolt sparked by disputed parliamentary elections in February 2005. Akayev’s 15-year rule came to an official end with his resignation as president in April. Acting president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, on April 28, 2005, said that Kyrgyzstan must abolish the death penalty. "I suggest that we consider exclusion of the death penalty clause from the constitution and its replacement with a lifetime sentence," he said at a constitutional conference in Bishkek. Bakiev won a landslide victory in July 2005 polls and took office as president in August 2005.
On October 13, 2005, speaking to members of the Constitutional Council, President Bakiyev called for constitutional amendments that would abolish the death penalty. The Constitutional Council is a body presided over by Bakiyev himself and formed by 289 representatives of parliament, government and civil society. The Council is expected to draft constitutional amendments by the year's end.
On June 14, 2004, the human rights commissioner of Kyrgyzstan, Tursunbai Bakir-uulu, denounced “inhuman” conditions on death row. The commissioner said courts should stop passing death sentences until Kyrgyzstan built a special prison for people so condemned. There were 160 persons on death row in Kyrgyzstan.