14/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - Luisa Morgantini (GUE/NGL, Italy), Chair of the Cooperation and Development Committee at the European Commission, calls on the Palestinian Authority to abolish the death penalty. After four men condemned to death between 1995 and 2000 were executed in the central prison of Gaza, on 12 June, the MEP said she was “horrified … and with me the large number of Palestinian and international associations and NGOs that have repeatedly expressed during all the past years their objection to this State crime, demanding that it be abolished”. The Palestinians, Ms Morgantini stressed, “need democracy, justice and peace”, saying: “The death penalty is part of a culture of revenge that we need to defeat”.