VIETNAM. PARLIAMENT CUTS LIST OF DEATH PENALTY CRIMES

Vietnam voted in favor of dropping the death penalty on eight crimes. The amendments to the Criminal Code, passed at the closing day of the National Assembly's month-long session, will take place from January 1, 2010.
Those convicted of rape, fraud for appropriating property, smuggling, making and trafficking in counterfeit money and bonds, using drugs, giving bribes, hijacking or piracy and destroying military weapons will be spared, parliament said in a statement (the proceedings were closed to foreign reporters). Those already convicted of capital crimes and awaiting the death penalty will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
Those already convicted of capital crimes and awaiting the death penalty will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
Seventy-five percent of deputies in the communist-dominated National Assembly endorsed the amendments to the penal code. The parliament removed using drugs from the list of crimes punishable by death, but deputies maintained capital punishment for drug trafficking.
Vietnam last reduced the number of death penalty crimes from 44 to 29 in 1999, but even with the latest amendments the country still has 21 crimes on its statutes that are punishable by death.