>>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formally repealed, but that the stances of the Constitutional Court and the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.