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Russian lawmaker suggests returning death penalty for terrorists

"I believe it is necessary to do this," leader of the political party A Just Russia told reporters ahead of the opening of the joint meeting of Russia’s Federation Council and State Duma

MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. Leader of the political party A Just Russia Sergey Mironov suggests lifting a moratorium on the use of the death penalty against terrorists and their accomplices.

"Since war is war, in my speech today I will propose to amend the Russian legislation and, as an exception to the rule, impose a death penalty for terrorists and their accomplices who helped terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks. I believe it is necessary to do this," Mironov told reporters ahead of the opening of the joint meeting of Russia’s Federation Council and State Duma.

According to Mironov, "the [Russian] legislation should envisage material and moral encouragement for citizens who helped to curb the activities of terrorist and extremist groups in Russia."

According to Mironov, "today international terrorism in the name of Islamic State (IS) [a terrorist group banned in Russia] has declared war on the entire world." "As long as this is a war, we need to win the war and hit the enemy in its den. Today the so-called Islamic State is a malignant tumor on our planet whose metastases occur in various countries in the form of terrible terrorist attacks," Mironov said.

Members of LDPR [Liberal Democratic Party of Russia] have repeatedly came up with the initiative to return the death penalty for a number of particularly serious crimes, including for terrorism. On November 18, the idea was expressed by deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Physical Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs Alexander Sherin, and in December 2013 LDPR member Roman Khudyakov suggested returning the capital punishment for terrorism, pedophilia and inducement to drug use.

However, the relevant committees of the State Duma and the Federation Council said the issue of returning the death penalty was irrelevant. "The return of the death penalty runs counter to the stance of the Russian Constitutional Court and Russia’s obligations in the Council of Europe," head of the Federation Council’s Committee on Constitutional Legislation Andrey Klishas told TASS. He noted that "such suggestion was understandable", but its implementation "required substantial changes in the current legislation."