MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin plans to commute hundreds of death sentences in the next few days, emptying death row and in effect eliminating capital punishment, an official said Monday.
Robert Tsivilev, head of the presidential Pardons Commission, told Reuters he expected the president to sign four decrees this week which would commute all Russia's remaining death sentences to lengthy prison terms.
``I hope that in two or three days we will not have a single person left in our country awaiting execution,'' he said by telephone.
``In practice, Russia will join those countries that do not have the death penalty. I think this is a big step in the direction of democracy and civilization for our country.''
Tsivilev, who took over the Pardons Commission last October, said Yeltsin had already commuted the sentences of about 400 of the 716 prisoners on death row at the beginning of the year. The decrees commuting the rest were written and awaiting the president's signature, he said.
The sudden upsurge in pardons followed years of little action against capital punishment.
In 1996 Yeltsin placed a moratorium on carrying out executions as part of Russia's bid to join the Council of Europe, which forbids member states to execute prisoners in peace time.
The death sentence was last carried out in Russia, by the traditional method of a single bullet to the back of the head, on September 2, 1996. But little was done to move other prisoners off death row.
Only 148 death sentences were commuted in 1998, and not a single one in 1996 or 1997.
``For a person to sit in prison, waiting for execution, this is torture,'' said Tsivilev.
``I could not understand why the process should go so slowly. I presented the situation to the president, and he supported the decision to speed the process up. I sent him a note, and he agreed that by the end of May all the death penalty cases should be resolved.''
The death penalty remains on the books in Russia for serious crimes, and is backed by legislators who see the country as plagued by crime.
But the Constitutional Court has ruled that the death sentences may not be passed down in the 80 of Russia's 89 regions that do not have jury trials.
Tsivilev said he thought it would be difficult to have death penalty laws formally repealed, but that the stances of the Constitutional Court and the president were enough to prevent executions from resuming.
``The majority of the public would like to see the death penalty retained. But two high government organs -- the Constitutional Court and the president -- insist on the single position that there should not be a death penalty,'' he said.