A court in Belarus has handed down the death penalty to a 32-year-old man, the first case this year.
Volha Barsukova, spokeswoman for the Homel Regional Court in eastern Belarus, said the man was sentenced to death on March 17 after he was found guilty of killing two retired people in the town of Naroulya in March 2016.
The man’s named was not revealed.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe to hand out capital punishment.
The last death sentence was handed down in December 2016 to a man who was found guilty of murdering his two daughters.
The European Union and rights groups have urged Belarus to join a global moratorium on the death penalty for years.
According to rights organizations, more than 400 people have been sentenced to death in the ex-Soviet republic since the early 1990s.
