RUSSIA. DECISION TO SENTENCE BESLAN TERRORIST TO DEATH SLAMMED

Russian human rights organizations slammed the decision to sentence Nurpashi Kulayev to death. Kulayev was the only surviving participant from the terrorist attack on Beslan secondary school.
"This country has a moratorium on the death penalty, which is our commitment to the Council of Europe. If we lift this moratorium, we will be expelled from the Council of Europe," Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva said.
"Terrorists deserve the severest punishment. This is a crime which deserves the firmest reaction from the courts. However, the reinstitution of death sentence, even for the most terrible criminals, would be an alarming fact. Today we sentence a terrorist to death, tomorrow a spy, and so on and so on. This is a very alarming tendency," Chairman of the Russian Justice Minister's Public Council Valery Borshchev said. Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel had demanded Kulayev be sentenced to death.