The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma,...

The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, had not ruled out the possibility of lifting the 1996 moratorium on death penalty and discussed it among other proposals to strengthen security after the terrorist attack in Beslan.
A special working group to tighten anti-terrorist legislation had been set up, first deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament, Lyubov Sliska for Putin's centrist United Russia party told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
The reintroduction of the implementation of the death penalty for terrorists found supporters from many parliamentary groups, Sliska said. Sliska herself, who was against the capital punishment, now favoured the introduction of the death penalty after the massacre of children in Beslan. This would be a deterrent measure for the those who organise, finance and perform terrorist attacks, Sliska said.
There might be some protests in western Europe but the Russian leaders should not care what the western governments thought but think towards solving its own problems, Sliska said.
"The USA has had the electric chair for a long time. Since 11 September all ways of countering terrorists have been tightened up there, but nobody in Europe is complaining about this," she added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin would have the final word on the return of the death penalty. The moratorium, adopted by Russia on its joining the Council of Europe, depended on a presidential decree signed by the then president Boris Yeltsin and later confirmed by Putin. The parliament had never turned the decree into abolition of the capital punishment.
Both communist and nationalist factions in Russia had been in favour of reintroduction of the death penalty and in the past few years many moderate politicians connected with Putin's centrist party added to the supporters of the implementation of the capital punishment.
Before the recent terrorist attacks, Putin said that he was against the death penalty because "only God can give death".