[OMRI Daily Digest II, No. 219, 9 Nov 95]

Prime Minister Tiit Vahi, following a cabinet meeting on 7 November, said he thought the country was not yet ready for the abolition of the death penalty, BNS reported. Justice Minister Paul Varul noted that the parliament can ratify the European Human Rights Convention without accepting the protocol that bans capital punishment. A court in Narva that day sentenced Eduard Magi to death for three brutal murders, rapes, and robberies. Estonian courts have passed several death sentences since September 1991, but none has been carried out. -- Saulius Girnius