MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ordered ministers from his Likud party to oppose a bill proposing to sentence terrorists to death, local media reported.
Netanyahu also ordered to create a governmental committee to further examine the controversial draft law, the Haaretz reported. According to the newspaper, the establishment of the body would significantly hinder the initiative.
The orders came just hours before the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation was due to vote on the bill, proposed by the Yisrael Beytenu nationalist party.
The bill suggests that convicted terrorists can be sentenced to death with a majority of judges, rather than the unanimous decision required under existing law.
Although Israeli laws allow for the death sentence, the country resorted to capital punishment only once to execute Adolf Eichmann, a Holocaust organizer, after a 1962 trial in Jerusalem.
