Bangkok | Tuesday
THAILAND’S executions by firing squad could be replaced by lethal injections from next year, after the upper house Senate votes on the issue in October, a report said Tuesday.Bangkok Post that a team of experts, including an architect, a doctor and an engineer, would go to the United States in June for a study tour.
Officials at the corrections department would lay down procedures with the health ministry after the team returned, he told the daily newspaper.
Siwa said he expected lethal injections to be introduced in 2003 after the senate approved the change.
Last November a cabinet committee proposed dumping the firing squad as a method of execution an idea raised by several previous governments.
Under the current system, an executioner fires a round from a machine gun at the condemned prisoner who stands behind a curtain with hands tied to a pole. Before 1934, the condemned were decapitated with a sword.
The change had been resisted by the corrections department which said last year that the firing squad was cheap and efficient, while lethal injection would require executioners to receive special training.
Thailand has caught flak in recent years for its use of the death penalty, particularly on convicted drug traffickers.
Last April, television journalists were invited to stand outside a room where five convicted drug felons were executed by firing squad in an effort by Thai officials to show it was serious about enforcing anti-drug laws.
While the publicity stunt was intended to underscore Thaksin’s tough stand on the issue, the move drew fierce criticism from rights groups, leading officials to halt to the practice.
The Thai government reintroduced the death penalty in 1996 after a nine-year hiatus. – AFP