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The Malaysian cabinet has agreed to abolish the death penalty, a foreign minister said Thursday, with more than 1,200 death row prisoners sentenced to death after a wave of opposition to the death penalty.
The death penalty is currently mandatory for murder, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking, among other crimes, and is executed by hanging – a legacy of British colonial rule.
Minister of Communications and Multimedia Gobind Singh Deo confirmed that the cabinet has decided to end the death penalty.
"I hope the law will soon be changed," he told AFP.
The government decided to abolish the death penalty because the Malaysian public had shown that it was against the death penalty, Gobind said.
Government Minister Liew Vui Keong announced on Thursday that a moratorium on executions would be imposed on currently sentenced prisoners, local media reports said.
"Since we are abolishing punishment, not all executions should be carried out," Star said.
Liew said the amended law will be submitted to Parliament next Monday.
The moratorium on the death penalty would save, among others, two women accused of murdering the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who became a foreigner last year.
Last year, a Malaysian court ruled that the case could be prosecuted against Indonesian nationals Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong of Vietnam after the murder of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Australian citizen Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, who was found guilty of drug trafficking by a court of appeal in May, will also be granted a stay.
The 54-year-old grandmother was arrested in December 2014 after being found in possession of 1.1 kg of crystal meth while she was crossing Kuala Lumpur on a Shanghai-Melbourne flight.
– & # 39; Barbarian, cruel & # 39; –
Last April, the human rights group Amnesty International ranked Malaysia twenty-fifth among the states that apply the death penalty to the 23 countries that implemented the death penalty in 2016.
Between 2007 and 2017, 35 people were hanged, according to the newspaper New Straits Times.
A total of 1,267 prisoners are on death row, representing 2.7% of the 60,000-strong prison population.
This decision was well received by human rights defenders, who stated that there was no evidence that mandatory death sentences deterred violators from violent or drug-related crimes.
"The death penalty is barbaric and of unimaginable cruelty," said N. Surendran, counsel for the advocacy group "Lawyers for Liberty," in a statement.
Once the death sentence is overturned, Malaysia will have the moral authority to fight to save the lives of Malaysians facing the death penalty abroad, he added.
Neighboring Singapore, also a former British colony, maintains the death penalty for certain crimes such as murder and drug trafficking.
According to Amnesty International, in its report last month on the death penalty in 2017, the death penalty was only pronounced in 23 countries. China is considered the "first executioner of the world".
There have been 993 executions registered in 2017 in 23 countries, but Amnesty figures do not include the "thousands" that allegedly were executed in China, which classifies this information as a state secret.
Excluding China, Amnesty reports that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan carried out 84% of all executions in 2017.
The death penalty is currently mandatory in Malaysia for murder, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking, among other crimes
The moratorium on the death penalty would save two women accused of murdering former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's half-brother last year.
