- Capital punishment in the Netherlands
Capital punishment ("Doodstraf" in Dutch) in the Netherlands was first abolished in
1870 , though only incriminal law , by the Dutchjustice minister Van Lilaar. Following the abolition of thedeath penalty ,life imprisonment was made an official punishment in1878 . Inmilitary law , however, capital punishment remained a legal option until 1983, when it was forbidden. In 1991, any reference to the death penalty was removed from Dutch law.In the aftermath of the
Second World War , the Dutchgovernment in exile decided to reintroduce capital punishment because it feared the Dutch people "would take matters into their own hands" after five years of cruel German occupation [ [http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/programmas/2899536/afleveringen/24981565/items/25218238/ "Bravo" voor de doodstraf] ] [ [http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/programmas/2899536/afleveringen/24981565/items/25218286/ Bijzondere Rechtspraak na de Tweede Wereldoorlog] ] . In 1945, the massive process of prosecuting traitors and collaborators began; several thousand people were arrested. 152 people were sentenced to death of whom 39 were actually executed. In Dutch law, the Queen could giveclemency to people convicted to death effectively changing their sentence from death to life imprisonment.Queen Juliana especially did this regularly, thereby limiting the number of sentences actually carried out [ [http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/programmas/2899536/afleveringen/24981565/items/25218369/ Gratie en de koningin: Een deal op leven en dood] ] . In most cases the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment after the defendantappealed . The last executions in the Netherlands took place onMarch 21 1952 , on the Waalsdorpervlakte, nearThe Hague , where a large number of Dutch resistance members had been executed by the Germans during the war. Wilhelm Albrecht (an SD officer responsible for the death of dozens of Dutchmen and women [ [http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/programmas/2899536/afleveringen/24981565/items/25218340/ Wilhelm Artur Albrecht] ] ) and Andreas Pieters (a notorious Dutch collaborator, infamously known as "Steinbach" [ [http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/programmas/2899536/afleveringen/24981565/items/25218313/ Andries Pieters, alias Steinbach] ] ) were the last people to be executed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.Today the Netherlands operates a clear policy against capital punishment, such as not participating in
extradition if the suspect has even the slightest chance of receiving the death penalty.References
General note: "All sources are in Dutch."
Sources:
* [http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/ Nationaal Archief] , the largest public archive in the Netherlands.
* Archief Ministerie van Justitie, the archive of theDutch Ministry of Justice .References:
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