OMRI DAILY DIGEST

No. 20, Part I, 29 January 1996

Russia said on 26 January that it is unwilling or unable to meet some of the conditions attached to its admission to the Council of Europe, AFP reported. A senior Interior Ministry official said that it would be "premature" to ban the death penalty--one of the council's stipulations--and that "two thirds of society agree with this view." In an interview with Ekho Moskvy, Duma Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ilyukhin said Russia would be unable to end the death penalty in the near future as its prisons do not have the capacity to keep large numbers of prisoners serving life sentences. (In 1994, 154 people received the death penalty, but only two sentences were carried out.) AFP also quoted presidential representatives as saying there are no plans to abolish Yeltsin's 1994 anti-organized crime decree, which permits the detention of suspects for up to 30 days before charges are brought. Human rights activists have derided the council's decision to admit Russia as a mockery of its own ideals. -- Penny Morvant