Kazakhstan's Interior Ministry Proposes Executing Drug Dealers

Kazakhstan's Interior Ministry has sent a bill to the country's parliament that would toughen penalties for drug-related crimes up to the death penalty, Interior Ministry spokesman Bagdat Kozhakhmetov said on Monday, Reuters reports.

Earlier, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the republic, Baurzhan Mukhamedzhanov, stated that at the moment the average sentence for drug trafficking is up to three years, with the majority of convicts being released on parole. The lenience of court sentences leads to recidivism, and the actions of traffickers become even more sophisticated, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs emphasized.

According to Bagdat Kozhakhmetov, the ministry proposes to provide for capital punishment for organizing a criminal group involved in drug trafficking, for trafficking and storage in especially large quantities, as well as for involving minors in drug use.

There is currently an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty in Kazakhstan. Sentences are passed, but are commuted to life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, since the beginning of this year, police officers alone have seized over 20 tons of drugs, including 140 kilograms of heroin. In addition, the Ministry has information that a third of the stocks of finished heroin accumulated in Afghanistan, which is about 500 tons, are being prepared for export to Russia and Europe through Kazakhstan.

It should also be taken into account that at least about 10 percent of such "transit" drugs end up in Kazakhstan, which also has its own vast marijuana fields in the south in the Chui Valley, which is also located in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.