Vietnam to replace firing squads with lethal injections

Vietnam's communist-dominated legislature voted on Thursday to replace firing squads with lethal injections, which some lawmakers said was a more humane form of execution, a media report said.

Almost all of the 433 deputies present approved the change, which will take effect in July next year, according to the VietnamNet online news service.

"Among measures to carry out the death penalty, lethal injection has more advantages and is feasible," it quoted the chairwoman of the assembly's judicial committee, Le Thi Thu Ba, as saying.

A paper issued by a key group of deputies before the month-long legislative session said it was necessary "to find a more humanitarian method" of execution than firing squads.

"Injection of poison causes less pain to people being executed and their bodies stay intact. It costs less, and reduces psychological pressure on the executors," said the document.

But legislators were divided during debates on the proposed change.

"Public shooting is necessary" for crimes involving national security, one deputy, Dang Van Xuong, was quoted by VietnamNet as saying.

Assembly member Pham Xuan Thuong, cited by VNExpress news portal, said firing squads were a deterrent for crimes like murder but he proposed that the shootings be carried out inside jails, "instead of having execution fields in every province."

Vietnamese authorities do not issue death penalty statistics but since the start of this year, 49 people have been sentenced to death and 1 person executed, according to reports in state-linked media.

Most death sentences in Vietnam are handed down in drug trafficking and murder cases.

Source: Agence France-Presse, June 17, 2010

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