THAILAND: Amnesty urges govt to axe death penalty

Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday urged the government to impose a moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty.

Amnesty issued its call ahead of the scheduled replacement of firing squads with lethal injections on Oct 19.

The government earlier said lethal injections were "humane" and would mean fewer mishaps during executions.

"Changing the method of execution does not change the inhumanity of capital punishment," the London-based group said in a statement to mark World Day against the Death Penalty.

"Whether people are shot or injected with chemicals, execution is still a judicial killing and a violation of the right to life," it said.

With nearly 1,000 men and women under sentence of death, Amnesty said there were more people currently on death row than at any point in the country's history.

"We urge the Thai government to stop executions and to fight crime without taking lives," the statement said.

The number of people on death row had reportedly nearly tripled in the past two years, with the majority recently convicted for drug offences.

Authorities have repeatedly announced their intention to speed up the execution of drug offenders as a deterrent.

Amnesty said lethal injections did not necessarily deliver the swift and painless death claimed by proponents.

Many legal and medical experts in the United States recently expressed concern the cocktail of drugs used in lethal injections may leave the condemned prisoner conscious, paralysed, suffocating and in intense pain before death, it said.

A total of 68 men and women on death row had exhausted all legal appeals and faced imminent execution.

A further 905 were appealing death sentences.

The death sentence was mandatory for premeditated murder, the killing of an official on government business, regicide, and the production and importing of heroin.

It was discretionary for a number of offences including robbery, rape, kidnapping, arson and bombing, insurrection, treason and espionage, possession of more than 100 grammes of heroin or amphetamines, and aircraft hijacking.

At least 50 people had been killed by firing squad since executions were resumed in 1995 after an 8-year moratorium.