Criminals in Beijing to get lethal injection instead of gunshot

New Delhi, June 16 (ANI): By the end of the year all criminals sentenced to death in Beijing will receive a lethal injection instead of being executed by gunshot.

A lethal injection site has been built next to the city's No.1 detention house, which houses the majority of Beijing's condemned, in Dougezhuang town, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

The Beijing Municipal High People's Court has already made preparations for the change, including allocation of staff and boosting technical capacity.

It will soon start training judicial police, who will deliver the prisoners and administer the injections, and also medical staff who will supervise the use of the drugs as well as monitor and confirm the deaths.

The new execution site is equipped with rooms for execution, observation and the storage of bodies. The execution bed, injection pump and disinfection facilities are all specially produced, the report said.

Hu Yunteng, director general of SPC's research bureau told China Daily that lethal injection was considered cleaner, safer and more convenient.

Criminals condemned to execution by gunshot need to be delivered from the detention house to a large open area, a process requiring a lot of judicial resources, including armed police.

"Lethal injection will be used in all intermediate people's courts, though such a procedure is not possible in the short term because of the high costs of input and enforcement," he said.

Lethal injection was made legal in China in 1997 when the country's Criminal Procedure Law was amended to provide an alternative method of execution.

Kunming became the first city to use lethal injection the next year, followed by Wuhan, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Luoyang as well as other cities. Beijing began using the method to execute some prisoners in June 2000. (ANI)