DUSHANBE, January 10, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- Tajik courts passed seventeen life sentences last year, which is 14 cases more than in 2010, Zafar Azizov, the head of the Shuroi Adliya (Council of Justice), told reporters in Dushanbe on January 9.   

Since 2004, Tajikistan put moratorium on death penalty.  At the same year, life imprisonment was declared as a legal alternative of that punishment.  In spite of the fact that no death penalty issued in Tajikistan, this type of punishment exists de-jure.  Number of articles in Tajikistan, for which capital punishment used to be delivered, was decreased from 16 up to 5 and they were for murder, terrorism, rape, biocide and genocide.

“The life sentence is passed mainly on persons involved in terrorism or having committed brutal murders,” said Azizov, “Crimes such as biocide or genocide have not been registered in Tajikistan.”

In all, Tajik courts passed 5,973 sentences on criminal cases last year; 54 of those sentences were acquittals.