HANOI (Reuters) -Vietnam will remove the death penalty for eight offences from next month, including embezzlement and activities aimed at overthrowing the government, state media reported on Wednesday.
The National Assembly, the country’s lawmaking body, unanimously ratified the amendment to the Criminal Code earlier on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty for the crimes, the official Vietnam News Agency reported.
Other crimes that will no longer lead to the death penalty include vandalising state property, manufacturing fake medicine, jeopardising peace, triggering invasive wars, espionage and drug trafficking, the report said.
The maximum sentence for these crimes will now be life imprisonment, it said.
Those who were sentenced to death for these offences before July 1 but have not yet been executed will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.
Ten offences will remain subject to capital punishment in Vietnam, including murder, treason, terrorism and the sexual abuse of children, according to the report.
Capital punishment data is a state secret in Vietnam and it is not known how many people are currently on death row in the country. Lethal injection is the only method of execution after firing squads were abolished in 2011.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by David Stanway)
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