11:20 pm Oct 17, 1995 by C-reuters@clari.net in glas:clari.w.eu.eas

KIEV, Ukraine (Reuter) - Ukraine has suspended the death

penalty to fulfil membership requirements for the Council of

Europe, the justice minister said Tuesday.

Ukraine is the first former Soviet republic to take such

action.

``The country's leadership has taken this decision,'' Serhi

Holovaty told a delegation from the Council of Europe's

parliamentary assembly.

``Death sentences have not been carried out in any case

since September,'' Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted him as

saying.

The Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly agreed in

Strasbourg, France, last month to admit Ukraine to membership

subject to certain conditions, including abolition of the death

penalty.

Ukrainian television quoted Deputy Prime Minister Vasyl

Durdynets as telling the delegation that the death penalty would

be removed from the largely Soviet-era criminal code within two

to three years.

Opinion polls show only 5 percent of respondents favor

abolition of the death penalty. Statistics show the number of

crimes committed up 13 percent over last year.

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the

only other former Soviet republics to show any inclination to

remove the death penalty. But the provision remains on the

statute books and public opinion in all three countries remains

heavily in favor of retaining it.

Five crimes in Ukraine's criminal code provide for the death

sentence, carried out by one bullet to the back of the head.

Official statistics say 143 death sentences were ordered

last year of which 60 were carried out. Seventy-four were handed

down in the first nine months of this year.

The 36-nation Council of Europe, which oversees human

rights, ecology and other matters, has little political clout,

but Ukraine has invested heavy political capital in membership

as a step toward acceptance in the West.

Other conditions for membership include ratification of the

European Convention on Human Rights and a convention on minority

rights and Ukrainian acceptance of the jurisdiction of the

European Court of Human Rights.