Thailand retires execution squads

Thailand will retire its execution squads and instead put convicted prisoners to death by lethal injection from October, officials said Thursday.

"The new execution law will be effective from October 19, requiring lethal injection to replace the firing squad," a corrections department official told AFP.

The Matichon Thai-language newspaper quoted the department's deputy director general Nathee Chitsawang as saying that the change was due to several reasons including a concern for human rights.

"Human rights is one reason, and another is to avoid accidents when the prisoners do not die immediately," he said.

The newspaper said 53 prisoners are currently on death row, including 25 on drugs charges.

Since 1935, 319 prisoners including three women have been executed by firing squad in Thailand, the last on December 11 in the case of a prisoner found guilty of murder, it said.

Under the current system, an executioner fires a round from a machine gun at the condemned prisoner who stands behind a curtain with hands tied to a pole, clutching incense and a lotus blossom according to Buddhist custom.

Before 1935, the condemned were decapitated with a sword.

The Thai government reintroduced the death penalty in 1996 after a 9-year hiatus, and the rate of execution has been stepped up due to a "war on drugs" aimed at wiping out opium and methamphetamine trafficking.