Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) refused to commit to a request by victims’ families that the 40 detainees on death be executed simultaneously.
During a meeting with a group of victims’ families at his office on Friday, the minister offered his sympathies, but said he was determined to handle the convicts in accordance with the law.
“The law is meant to bring justice to the world and criminals should be punished according to law,” he said. “Although the Ministry of Justice has set the abolition of the death penalty as a goal, those who have already been sentenced to death should be executed, as required by the law.”
Although the meeting was behind closed doors, Hsu Wen-bin (許文彬), a national policy adviser to the president and a human rights lawyer, said afterwards that many families of the victims tearfully pleaded with Tseng to have all death row inmates executed simultaneously.
Tseng took office on March 22 to fill a post left by Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), who resigned amid a public outcry after refusing to sign execution orders for death row inmates.
Tseng has told the Legislative Yuan that he personally favors the abolishment of the death penalty, but that he would follow the law in dealing with death row inmates unless it is changed to end capital punishment.
Tseng made headlines when he approved the execution of four death row inmates on April 30 — the nation’s first executions since December 2005 — and drew condemnation from an EU foreign policy chief, who asked Taiwan to declare a moratorium on the death penalty and work to amend laws abolishing the practice.
Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network on Thursday repeated their appeals to the Taiwanese government to restore an unofficial moratorium on executions to spare the lives of 40 death row inmates.
The two groups’ separate statements came after a decision on May 28 by the Council of Grand Justices of the Constitutional Court rejecting a petition by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty on behalf of the prisoners.
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