VIETNAM. PM CALLS FOR AMENDING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT LAWS

Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai called for a review of capital punishment while authorities sought to replace the firing squad with remotely-fired weapons to shield the troops from any trauma. Khai also called on the public security ministry, the supreme court, the supreme people’s Procuracy – the prosecutor’s office – and the justice department to consider handing over the bodies of executed criminals to their family. A decision by the interior ministry in 1974, still in force, banned their handing over.
The PM also called on the agencies to examine the 1999 criminal code and consider abolishing the death sentence for certain economic crimes.