09/03/2020 (Agence Europe) – The spokesman for the European External Action Service denounced on 7 March the announcement, the day before, that Viktar Skrundzik had been sentenced to death in Belarus for the murder of two elderly people in January 2019. This is the third death sentence in the country since the beginning of the year. “The European Union reaffirms its strong opposition against the application of capital punishment in any circumstance. The death penalty violates the inalienable right to life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Miscarriages of justice, inevitable in any judicial system, are irreversible”, the spokesman said in a statement. The spokesman considered that if Belarus commuted the remaining death sentences and introduced a moratorium on the death penalty this would be a very positive first step towards its abolition. (CG)