Amnesty International condemns Thailand’s execution of convicted murderer

“This is a deplorable violation of the right to life. Thailand’s reneging on its own commitment to move towards the abolition of death penalty and is putting itself out of step with the current global shift away from capital punishment,” said Amnesty International’s Thailand campaigner Katherine Gerson in a statement issued on Tuesday.

“There is no evidence that the death penalty has any unique deterrent effect, so the Thai authorities’ hope that this move will reduce crime is deeply misguided.  The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and provides no quick-fixes to problems the authorities want to confront.

“After almost ten years without an execution, this represents a major setback in the country’s journey towards abolition.  The Thai government must immediately halt any plans to carry out further executions and establish a moratorium on  the implementation of the death penalty,” said Gerson.

26-year old Thirasak Longji was sentenced to death by the Court of First Instance for aggravated murder and robbery of his victim’s mobile phone and a wallet back in July 2012 in Trang province.  The court said he stabbed his victim 23 times until he fell dead.

The death sentence was upheld by both the Appeals and Supreme courts.

Thirasak’s execution was the first in nine years since two men were executive by lethal injection in August 2009, which followed a period of no executions since 2003.  Figures provided by the Justice Ministry state that at the end of March 2018, 510 people, including 94 women, were on death row of whom 193 had exhausted all final appeals.  More than half are believed to have been sentenced for drug-related offences.

As of today, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes and 142 in total are abolitionist in law or practice.