President Vladimir Putin, invoking the God-given right...

President Vladimir Putin, invoking the God-given right to life, said that Russia had to uphold its five-year-old moratorium on the death penalty despite widespread calls to reinstate executions to fight crime.
"The state should not assume the right which only the Almighty has - to take a human's life," Putin said in televised remarks from a Kremlin meeting with World Bank President James Wolfensohn. "That is why I can say firmly - I am against Russia reinstating the death penalty."
Opinion polls show that up to 80 percent of Russians favour doing away with the ban on the death penalty, introduced in 1996 to meet the membership requirements of the Council of Europe.Putin, often accused by opponents of tilting towards populist policies, said he was aware of public opinion on the death penalty but believed that state-sponsored cruelty did nothing to fight crime and only engendered new violence.
Though executions have not been carried out since 1996, the death penalty remains on the statute books.