The Chairman of the Kazakh Supreme Court Kairat Mami...

The Chairman of the Kazakh Supreme Court Kairat Mami opposes the possible abolition of the death penalty. "I stand for the preservation of punishments such as the death penalty," Mami said at a conference entitled: "Abolishing the Death Penalty: Pros and Cons" in Almaty. "We can hold endless debates on whether the death penalty is an efficient anti-criminal measure or not. Yet it is obvious that the death penalty is a kind of deterrent for potential criminals," he stressed. Kazakhstan's penitentiary system is undergoing gradual reforms aimed at the humanization of punishments, Mami remarked. Twenty-nine articles of the Kazakh Criminal Code stipulated the death penalty in the late 1990s. The Criminal Code that was adopted in 1998 reduced the range of crimes punishable by death. Normally, Kazakhstan punishes a member of a gang or an organized group of criminals who kills two or more people with the death penalty, Mami stressed. "As a rule, we pass the death sentence on individuals who are responsible for more than one cruel murder," he said. The rate of death sentences in Kazakhstan is showing a stable downward trend, Mami said. Seventy-eight people were sentenced to death in Kazakhstan in 1999. The rate was 39 in 2000, and 30 in 2001.