Amnesty International Report 1997 - Latvia

Two men were executed and two were sentenced to death. Approximately 130 asylum-seekers remained in detention throughout most of the year. In June, President Guntis Ulmanis was elected for a second term by the Latvian parliament (Saeima). In January, Igor Strukov and Rolans Laceklis-Bertmanis were executed. Igor Strukov had been sentenced to death in November 1994 for robbery and the murder of two people. Rolans Laceklis-Bertmanis had been convicted in August 1995 of the murder of two policemen. These were the first executions to have been carried out since Latvia became a member of the Council of Europe and signed the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights) in February 1995. In June, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 1097 (1996) in which it expressed its regret that Latvia had not kept its commitment to ratify Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which abolishes the death penalty in peacetime, within one year of its accession to the Council of Europe. The Assembly called upon Latvia "to honour [its] commitments regarding the introduction of a moratorium on executions and the abolition of capital punishment immediately". In a speech to the Assembly in September, President Ulmanis announced that he would grant all requests for clemency submitted to him, pending a decision by the Saeima on abolition of the death penalty. Two men were sentenced to death, including Vladimir Lesik who was convicted in November of murdering three people. In December, most of the approximately 130 asylum-seekers detained throughout the year were allowed to enter Denmark, Finland, Norway or Sweden, where they were granted political asylum. The asylum-seekers were originally detained on a train on the Latvian/Russian border in March 1995 and later moved to a detention camp in Olaine near the capital, Riga (see Amnesty International Report 1996). Throughout the year Amnesty International urged the authorities to impose an immediate moratorium on all death sentences and executions in Latvia and to ratify Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights. The organization also asked the authorities for information on the outcome of clemency appeals submitted by death-row prisoners. In August, Amnesty International was informed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that four prisoners sentenced to death in previous years had had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, three of them following appeals to President Ulmanis. The Minister also confirmed that a revised draft of the Criminal Code, providing for abolition of the death penalty, had been submitted to parliament for consideration. In August, Amnesty International urged the authorities to take immediate steps to provide all asylum-seekers with the necessary protection against refoulement and to treat them fully in accordance with the relevant international standards for the protection of asylum-seekers, including standards providing that asylum-seekers should not normally be detained (see Amnesty International Report 1996). The organization also called upon the authorities to ratify the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. In his letter to Amnesty International in the same month, the Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that people who had been detained for "illegal entry" into Latvia were "guaranteed non-refoulement to countries where they could face persecution". The Minister added that a working group had been established to draw up a draft law on refugees.