А Belarusian court has sentenced a man to death for two fatal robberies, the second death sentence this year to be handed down in the only country in Europe that still uses it.
Judges in the court in the western city of Hrodno found Ivan Kulish guilty on November 20 of killing three saleswomen during two robberies in 2013 and 2014.
Kulish, 28, refused to testify during the trial and didn't make any remarks after the verdict.
In March, a court in the southeastern city of Homel sentenced a man to death for the murder of a young woman.
According to rights groups, more than 400 people have been sentenced to death in the ex-Soviet republic since the early 1990s.
The European Union on November 20 urged Belarus to join a global moratorium on the death penalty as "a first step towards its abolition."
"The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity,” the EU said in a statement.
