Amnesty International: New death sentence is a challenge to Council of Europe

Wojcech Makowski, a spokesman for the Polish office of the Amnesty International, has described as a challenge to the Council of Europe another death sentence in Belarus. On June 29, the Brest Regional Court sentenced a 30-year-old resident of the village of Taratsia to the capital punishment for killing six old women.
Makowski said: "We believe that the sentence issued in June confronts the conditions for restoring the special guest status of Belarus at the Council of Europe. We believe that by doing so Belarus challenges the Council of Europe.

The Council of Europe made a positive jesture by restoring the status. But it turned out that Belarus issued a new death penalty verdict at the same time. We condemn that  Belarus has again issued a death sentence”.

The Amnesty International representative also says that a moratorium that has to be announced in Belarus as soon as possible, must be complete, including the abolition of both the death penalty and the death sentance.

He added that a moratorim would automatically mean the revision of those cases and the replacement the death penalty with life in prison.