Minsk, Belarus will abolish the death penalty as soon as the US abolishes it, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said. A court in the capital Minsk sentenced Nov 30 two men to death for carrying out a bomb attack that killed 15 people and injured 200 in the Minsk metro. Belarus is the only European country still with the death penalty. Sentences are carried out by a shot in the neck. Human rights activists have urged Belarus not to apply the death penalty in the case. "The relevance of the death penalty has not declined today in Belarus," Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Xinhua. The European Union has called on Belarus to join the rest of Europe in prohibiting capital punishment. "When I was accused by the EU, I advise them to look at the other side of the ocean. Let the US abolish the death penalty, we'll be next," Lukashenko said. Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton, said: "We believe that the death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment that does not allow any reversal, and it fails to provide a deterrence to any criminal behaviour and is an unacceptable denial of human dignity and ...
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Ludhiana, February 5 (Doaba News Service)- The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), arrested two Nigerian nationals and seized 212 gm cocaine, worth Rs 3 crore in the international market, following a raid in Mohali. The accused are Ndidi Evans Peter and Monye Alexander, alias Ben Daniel Alex, and were arrested under the NDPS Act. Rajiv Gupta, a DRI official, said the accused were nabbed following a tip-off. The DRI received information that Monye was operating his drug trade from Mohali. A raid was conducted on the residential premises of Monye Alexander and 212gm of white powder, suspected to be drugs, was recovered. The contraband has been sent to chemical examination. The official said the contraband was kept in a hydraulic door spring along with other mechanical tools, which was to be sent abroad through a courier. The DRI officials are suspecting the involvement of the duo behind the attempt of smuggling of 310 gm of heroin, also kept in a similar hydraulic door spring. The drugs were smuggled in a parcel on January 19 and were sent by air to Milano, Italy. Sources said the DRI received information that the parcel had contained drugs in it. It was returned to India ...
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