MINSK, Belarus (AP) _ Belarus' Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that   the death penalty violates the constitution of the ex-Soviet republic, the   only European nation that still uses capital punishment.

The court's chief judge, Grigory Vasilevich, said that the verdict requires President Alexander Lukashenko and the Belarusian parliament to <impose a moratorium on the death penalty or completely outlaw it.>  Andrei Nareiko, a lawmaker who had asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the matter, said that the parliament was likely to suspend or ban capital punishment as early as this spring.

Last year, four Belarusian citizens were sentenced to death on murder charges.

<Imposing a moratorium on the death penalty will help solve problems in Belarus' relations with the West and demonstrate our striving for international legal standards,> Nareiko said after the court's verdict.

Lukashenko has been a pariah in the West for his authoritarian ways and systematic crackdown on the opposition and independent media, but he remains popular in the economically-struggling nation of 10 million thanks to his firebrand populism and efforts to preserve Soviet-style social welfare.

A 1996 referendum, which Lukashenko used to consolidate his authority and extend his tenure, had 80 percent of voters voicing support for capital punishment and only 17 percent speaking against it.

Belarus's guest status in the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organization, has been suspended since January 1997.