Human rights watchdog Amnesty International condemned Monday the execution of two prisoners in Belarus and called on President Alexander Lukashenko to impose a moratorium on the death penalty.

Andrei Zhuk and Vasily Yuzepchuk, sentenced to death in 2009 for crimes including murder, were executed last week, Amnesty said in a statement.
 

Zhuk's mother told Amnesty that she was informed by prison staff that both men, who had shared the same cell, were shot, the statement said.
 

They "were executed without being granted a last meeting with their relatives," said Halya Gowan, Amnesty's director of programmes for Europe and Central Asia.
 

The group called on Lukashenko "to establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty after it was revealed two men were executed at the end of last week," the statement said.
 

Amnesty noted that no executions were reported in the former Soviet republic in 2009, which meant that for the first time since it began keeping records "Europe was an execution-free zone last year".
 

Belarus' special guest status with the Council of Europe, which oversees human rights standards in its 47 member states, was withdrawn in 1997 after Minsk was deemed to have fallen short in advancing democracy and human rights.
 

It is the only European country that is not a member of the council, which enforces decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
 

A moratorium on the death penalty, which the council wants as a step towards the complete abolition of capital punishment, is a major condition for reinstatement of the special status.
 

Source: AFP