President Vladimir Putin's stand against the death...

President Vladimir Putin's stand against the death penalty set off a fresh wave of controversy over whether the country needs the capital punishment.The statement ended months of fence-sitting by the Russian president, torn between overwhelming support for the death penalty by his countrymen and overwhelming opposition to it in Western Europe.
In order to retain membership in European organisations, Russia has been halfheartedly observing a moratorium on capital punishment since 1996, but the statute permitting its use remains on the books.
"For the time being, the majority of our people believe [the death penalty] should be left at least for intimidation," said Gennady N. Seleznyov, speaker of parliament's lower house, the State Duma. "What's the use of hurrying" to ban it?
It was perhaps the first time in Putin's presidency that he took a position clearly at odds with polls, which show that about 80% of respondents favour the death penalty. But Sergei Kovalyov, Russia's most prominent human rights campaigner, said that when it comes to the death penalty, foreign policy trumps domestic policy. "I don't think Putin is a convinced opponent of the death penalty," Kovalyov said. "But there is nothing else Russia can do.... The Kremlin's ultimate task in international relations is to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States." And for that, it must remain a member of European organisations.
Putin's position on the death penalty had been unclear in part because in 2000 he stopped issuing presidential pardons. The practice was begun in 1996 by his predecessor, Boris N. Yeltsin, who used pardons to commute death sentences. Early in his administration, Yeltsin established a presidential clemency commission as a safety valve in a justice system acknowledged as flawed and cruel.
In 2000, Putin approved more than 12,000 clemency requests. But in the last few months of the year, he issued only eight, and none this year, according to Anatoly Pristavkin, chairman of the clemency panel.