RUSSIA. CONVICTED MURDERER PREFERS EXECUTION TO ROTTING IN JAIL

terrorised by the idea of staying behind bars for the rest of his life, Sergei Deineko, a Russian man convicted of six brutal murders turned to the Supreme Court with the unique appeal to cancel the pardon which replaced his death penalty with a life term.
Deineko wanted to be executed at all costs but the Supreme Court ruled that the pardon did not violate any law and therefore could not be put to discussion. Deineko had been in jail since 1997 when he was arrested together with his brother Alexander for a series of murders. The trial revealed that the brothers murdered at least six people that year. The death penalty could not be carried out because executions were frozen for an indefinite time in Russia in 1996 on request by the Council of Europe and with a decree issued by then president Boris Yeltsin. All suspended death penalties were commuted to life imprisonments. Deineko tried to defend his right to a death sentence in the appeal to the Supreme Court. The pardon represents a violation of my constitutional rights, Deineko wrote in the appeal. The highest Russian court however was not convinced that the appeal was subject to discussion because it said it was not competent on the matter. The Supreme Court also underlined that Deineko contradicted himself. After he was sentenced to death by shooting in 1997, Deineko's lawyers hurried to ask commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment.