Kazakhstan has frozen the death penalty for nearly 20 years. Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Schomart Tokajew signed a bill abolishing the death penalty on Jan. 2 local time, according to a news release from the country’s presidential administration.
Kazakhstan acceded to the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Official Rights (ICCPR) last year, and in the future the death penalty will be imposed only in times of war for the commission of serious war crimes.
Although the former Soviet-era republic has been able to impose the death penalty for more than a decade, no actual executions have taken place in Kazakhstan since then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a presidential decree freezing the death penalty in 2003. Nonetheless, courts continue to impose death sentences for major crimes, such as the 2016 Almaty terrorist attacks, where the main perpetrator was sentenced to death, which was replaced by life imprisonment at the time of execution.
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