Facts: Death penalty in the world
China is the country in the world that carries out the most death sentences, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International. However, the exact number of people executed is unknown as China does not publish statistics, but Amnesty International estimates that thousands of people are sentenced to death and executed every year.
In 2021, Iran carried out the second most executions, according to Amnesty, followed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Somalia. North Korea is not included in the statistics, as the dictatorship does not publish such data.
The total number of death sentences that Amnesty was able to register in 2021 increased by 39 percent compared to 2020. The organization works for a total abolition of the death penalty in the world.
Source: Amnesty International
It was a cold November morning just over fifty years ago that two men, seven minutes apart, were executed by guillotine in the courtyard of La Santé prison in Paris. One of them, 39-year-old Claude Buffet, was convicted of a high-profile double murder of a nurse and a prison guard during an escape attempt from a prison. 36-year-old Roger Bontems, who was involved in the escape attempt, was executed for aiding and abetting.
Bontem’s lawyer Robert Badinter was tormented by the thought that he had failed to save Bontem’s life and decided to do everything in his power to abolish the death penalty. In an interview 30 years after the guillotine, he said that for a long time he woke up early in the morning and pondered the failure.
— They had accepted that he had not killed anyone. Why did they sentence him to death then? Badinter said in the interview.
The guillotine was introduced as an execution tool in France during the French Revolution in the late 18th century.
The lawyer and later also the Minister of Justice Robert Badinter at a press conference in 2007. Archive picture. Tog sslan
The escape attempt that led to the high-profile double murder took place at the French prison of Clairvaux in 1971. Claude Buffet was serving a life sentence for another murder and persuaded fellow inmate Roger Bontems, who was serving a 20-year sentence for assault and aggravated robbery, that they should try to escape together . They pretended to be sick and were taken to the infirmary where they – armed with knives made from spoons – took a nurse and a prison guard hostage. The men threatened to execute the hostages if they were not given weapons and set free.
The drama kept the French people glued to their televisions until the prison was stormed at dawn by police, who found the nurse and the prison guard with their throats slit.
Countries that carried out the most death penalty in 2021. 55 countries still have the death penalty. Debate on the death penalty
After the double murder, an intense debate broke out about the death penalty. Something like this had not been implemented since then-President Georges Pompidou came to power two years earlier.
When Buffet and Bontems were put on trial in 1972, hundreds of people gathered outside the courthouse and demanded their execution.
Buffet admitted to the double murder and challenged the right to sentence him to death, while Bontems was found guilty of aiding and abetting. However, he was also sentenced to death after great pressure, including from organizations for prison guards who wanted revenge for the death of their colleague.
“Activist Passion”
The lawyer Badinter appealed to the Supreme Court and also to President Pompidou that the men should not be executed, but his request had no effect at a time when an opinion poll showed that 63 percent of the French were in favor of the death penalty. He came to be known as the “lawyer of murderers” because of his struggle, and was subjected to death threats because of his work, among other things.
In 1981, Badinter became Minister of Justice in President François Mitterand’s government and had as a top priority the abolition of the death penalty, which was formalized by parliament in September of that year.
Badinter later said that the case of Buffet and Bontems changed his attitude towards the death penalty “from an intellectual conviction to an activist passion”.
— I swore to myself when I left the yard of La Santé prison that morning at dawn that I would spend the rest of my life fighting the death penalty, he said in 2021.
In 1977, Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to be executed for crimes in France. He had been sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend and was executed by guillotine.