Capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

for

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

was abolished in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

on 15 December 1983. It was abolished for all crimes on 19 April 2002. The death penalty was replaced with

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

. Cyprus is a signatory to the second optional protocol of the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom ...

, which provides for full abolition of capital punishment. Cyprus initially had a reservation on the second protocol, allowing execution for grave crimes in times of war, but subsequently withdrew this reservation. The

Constitution of Cyprus The Constitution of Cyprus is a document, ratified on August 16, 1960, that serves as the Supreme Law of the Republic of Cyprus (Suprema Lex Cypri) defining the system of government of the Cypriot Republic and the civil liberties for the Cypriot ...

was amended in 2016 to eliminate all forms of capital punishment. The last three executions in Cyprus were carried out on the same day, 13 June 1962. These executions were the first after Cyprus gained independence in 1960 and therefore remain the only ones the country has ever carried out. Three men, Hambis Zacharia, Michael Hiletikos and Lazaris Demetriou, were hanged for murder at the Central Jail of Nicosia, the country's only prison. Zacharia had killed a man in a

Limassol Limassol, also known as Lemesos, is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the Limassol district. Limassol is the second-largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population of 195,139 and a district population o ...

vineyard with an axe in September 1958. Hiletikos and Demetriou were convicted of shooting a man outside a Limassol night-club in 1961. Hiletikos had fled to Britain, but was extradited back to Cyprus in November 1961. The British executioners Harry Allen and John Underhill travelled to Cyprus to carry out the hangings. Prior to independence, nine men had been hanged in 1956 and 1957 by the British for acts committed as members of

EOKA The Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (EOKA ; ) was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that fought a campaign for the end of Cyprus#Cyprus under the British Empire, British rule in Cyprus, and for enosis, eventual union with K ...

. The Central Jail of Nicosia still functions as a prison, but the area where executions were carried out is now a museum. The unrecognised state of the

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a '' de facto'' state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all o ...

retains the death penalty in limited circumstances. Article 15 of the state's constitution declares that capital punishment can be imposed in cases of treason during wartime, acts of terrorism and piracy ''jure gentium'', and for repeated murders. Even in these instances, no execution of capital punishment can be carried out unless the Northern Cyprus legislative assembly decides so under the provisions of Article 78. , Northern Cyprus has never carried out an execution.

References

Law of Cyprus Death in Cyprus Human rights abuses in Cyprus 2002 disestablishments in Cyprus {{capital-punishment-stub