The death penalty completely abolished in Kazakhstan

Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan with the UN Kairat Umarov signed the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty. Recall that this protocol was adopted by resolution 44/128 of the UN General Assembly on December 15, 1989.

The official accession of Kazakhstan to the Protocol took place on September 23 after the speech of the President of the Republic, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, at the general political debate of the 75th-anniversary session of the UN General Assembly, in which the Kazakh President stated that the right to life is fundamental in the country.

“Kazakhstan is determined to build an economically strong, democratically developed and focused on meeting the needs of every citizen hearing state. In this regard, we are carrying out large-scale political and economic reforms designed to give a new impetus to development in the interests of all our people. We have decriminalized libel and passed new laws on political parties and peaceful meetings. To protect the fundamental right to life and dignity of a person, it was decided to sign the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty, ”Tokayev said in his video message.

Recall that Tokayev instructed the government to work out the issue of Kazakhstan’s accession to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in December last year.

The use of the death penalty in Kazakhstan is banned since 2003 – after the country’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed a decree introducing a corresponding moratorium. The introduction of an indefinite moratorium was carried out as part of the state’s desire to humanize criminal legislation and comply with international standards.

However, this provision was nevertheless present in the criminal code and could be applied to all those sentenced to it after the end of the moratorium. According to the Criminal Code, people who have committed crimes under such articles as: encroachment on the life of the first president of Kazakhstan – the Leader of the Nation, encroachment on the life of the President of Kazakhstan, terrorism, high treason in wartime, desertion in wartime etc. – 17 articles in total, can be sentenced to capital punishment.

It should also be noted that after the introduction of a moratorium in Kazakhstan in 2003, Ruslan Kulekbaev became the first and only one sentenced to this type of punishment. In November 2016, he was sentenced to the death penalty for the murder of 10 people, including 8 police officers, in Almaty on July 18 of the same year.

It is noteworthy that due to the current moratorium, the punishment of Kulekbayev could not be enforced, so he was serving his sentence (pending the end of the moratorium) in the strict regime colony “Black Berkut” in the Kostanay region. In this institution, under the number UK-161/3, 287 convicts are serving their sentences, sentenced to life imprisonment or death. Now, after the abolition of the death penalty, Kulekbaev will have to spend there the rest of his life.

It should also be noted that 536 sentences were executed in Kazakhstan before the introduction of the ban on the death penalty. With the introduction of a moratorium, 5 people were sentenced to death in Kazakhstan. The last death sentence was carried out before the announcement of a moratorium towards 12 people in 2003.