Capital punishment was used from the creation of the modern Serbian state in 1804. On 26 February 2002, the Serbian Parliament adopted amendments striking the death penalty from the Criminal Code. The last execution, by shooting, took place on 14 February 1992, and the last death sentences were pronounced in 2001. Serbia is bound by the following international conventions prohibiting capital punishment (dates of ratification are given in parentheses): The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (6 September 2001), and Protocols No. 6 and No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights (3 March 2004). According to Article 24 of the Serbian constitution (2006): „Human life is inviolable. There shall be no death penalty in the Republic of Serbia“.
History
Serbia, 1804–1914
In the first decades of the 19th century, the death penalty was widely used in Serbia for a variety of offenses: murder, theft, political crimes, infanticide and even for extramarital sexual relations.
Until 1858, different modes of execution were in use: shooting, hanging, breaking on the wheel, „lethal gauntlet“ (a double file of men facing each other and armed with birch rods with which to strike at a person who is made to run between them) and decapitation; in the very beginning, there were a few instances of impalement. Until 1842, murderers were subject to „mirror“ punishments, meaning that a murderer was to be killed in an identical manner in which he killed the victim (often with the same weapon). In addition, the bodies of executed offenders were almost always publicly displayed on wheels and kept there for a set period of time or until „complete decay“. In 1858, shooting became the only legal mode of execution, while the practice of displaying the bodies was discontinued.
Under the first Serbian Penal Code, passed in 1860, the death sentences were to be executed in public, by shooting, while the executed body was to be buried immediately at the place of execution. The Code included sixteen capital offenses: various forms of murder and robbery leading to death, as well as treason. In 1863, however, the death penalty was re-introduced for theft and certain other crimes. The death penalty for theft was finally abolished only in 1902. In 1905, executions in Belgrade ceased to be public (the offenders were shot furtively in places not frequented by public), but they remained public (until 1930) in other towns and in the country, where thousands of spectators gathered for the spectacle.
Regular statistics on capital punishment began to be kept in 1889. Before that, reliable data exist for some years only. For example, in 1844 there were 62 death sentences (and 50 executions), in 1857 – 87 (10), 1868 – 64 (36) and in 1887 – 34 (23). In 1883, the year of a massive rebellion against the government (Timočka buna), 117 persons (mostly rebels) were sentenced to death and 47 executed. According to the official statistics, in the 25 years from 1889 to 1914 there were 600 death sentences and 344 executions.
Yugoslavia, 1918–1941
When Yugoslavia was created in 1918, different legal systems remained in force in different parts of the new country. In the north-western provinces (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Vojvodina), executions were by hanging in an enclosed space with restricted public attendance. In the remainder of the country (Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia), executions were by shooting and in public. When a single Penal Code was introduced for the whole country (1929), hanging remained the only legal mode of execution, with the exception of sentences passed by military courts, which were executed by shooting.
Crimes punished by death were mostly murder and robbery leading to death, as well as terrorism. The terrorists sentenced to death were mainly the communists and the Croatian, Macedonian and Albanian separatists.
According to the official statistics, there were 459 death sentences and 232 executions in Serbia from 1920 to 1940 (on average, 22 sentences and 11 executions per year). In the same period, in the whole of Yugoslavia there were 904 sentences and 291 executions (43 and 14 per year).
Hangings were performed by state executioners: Alois Seyfried (1918-1922), Florian Mausner (1922-1928) and Karlo Dragutin Hart (1928-1941).