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BEIJING - The number of people sentenced to death by Chinese courts in 2006 was the lowest in nearly a decade and the trend has continued this year following a key legal reform.
International rights groups had estimated China executes between 5000 and 12,000 people a year. But China has been slowly reforming the death penalty system after several high-profile wrongful convictions raised public anger.
The Supreme People's Court took back on January 1 its power of final approval on death penalties, relinquished to provincial high courts in a crime-fighting campaign in the 1980s.
Jiang Xingchang, vice-president of the top court, said the number of Chinese sentenced to death in 2006 was the smallest in about 10 years and the figure continued to drop in the first half of 2007. He did not give figures.
- REUTERS
