Polish Leader Angers Eu With Call to Restore Death Penalty

Poland's rightwing president has been condemned across Europe after calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty.

Lech Kaczynski, a conservative who used to ban gay rights parades when he was mayor of Warsaw, warned that abolishing capital punishment had handed "an unimaginable advantage to the criminal".

Many European leaders are concerned by the tilt to the right in Poland, the largest of the EU's new recruits. Europe's human rights watchdog warned that the reintroduction of the death penalty would be a "retrograde step" that would place Poland in breach of the European convention of human rights.

Rene van der Linden, the president of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, said: "The creation of a de facto death penalty-free zone throughout our 46 member states - stretching from Iceland in the west to Vladivostok in the east, and from Norway in the north to the south-east of Turkey - is one of our organisation's greatest achievements ... To suggest its reintroduction could in any sense represent a positive development would be a direct attack on our common values, which are founded on respect for the basic human dignity of every person."

Stefaan de Rynck, the European commission's spokesman, said: "The death penalty is not compatible with European values."

The condemnation of Mr Kaczynski comes amid growing fears that Poland's populist government is turning its back on what it regards as an overly liberal western Europe. Mr Kaczynski and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, who recently took over as prime minister, are not turning east because they loathe Russia even more. Instead, the twins appear to be insulating themselves from the outside world, a point reinforced recently when Mr Kaczynski missed the traditional Polish, German and French summit known as the "Weimar triangle", pleading ill-health.

The brothers' distaste for the EU prompted the president's call for the death penalty last Friday, which would be a popular move in Poland.

Mr Kaczynski said he hoped Europe would change its mind because "countries that give up this penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death".

Pawel Swieboda, the man credited with ensuring Poland joined the EU on time in 2004, said he was appalled by Mr Kaczynski's intervention. But Mr Swieboda, who campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty during the communist era, said Europe should be careful about condemning the twins.

"The president's attitude is that everything should be open for debate; there should be no taboo subjects," Mr Swieboda told the Guardian. "We should not create the impression that there are no-go areas. Human rights groups need to explain why the death penalty is wrong."