Lebanon abolishes death penalty, becoming first Middle East country to formally end capital punishment
Lebanon's parliament voted Tuesday to abolish the death penalty after a 22-year moratorium, making it the first Middle Eastern nation and second Arab League country to formally end executions. The measure will commute sentences for 85 death row prisoners to life imprisonment.
Lebanon officially ends capital punishment after more than 20 years without executions
Lebanon's parliament voted on Tuesday to formally abolish the death penalty, ending capital punishment after more than two decades without executions and becoming the first country in the Middle East to officially repeal the punishment.
The measure makes Lebanon the second member of the Arab League to abolish capital punishment, following Djibouti which took the step in 1995. Lebanon joins approximately 114 countries worldwide that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
Lawmakers approved the bill during a two-day legislative session that also included consideration of a contested general amnesty law. Justice Minister Adel Nassar described the decision as historic, noting that Lebanon last carried out executions in January 2004, when three men convicted of murder were put to death at Roumieh Prison through firing squad and hanging.
Under the new law, death sentences will be replaced with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour. The change will affect 85 people who remained on death row at the end of 2025, according to the Ministry of Justice's Directorate of Prisons.
Legal and diplomatic implications
Prior to abolition, Lebanese law authorized the death penalty for more than 41 different crimes, including treason, espionage, terrorism and intentional homicide. The repeal removes these provisions from the legal code.
Nassar emphasized that the abolition would eliminate a legal obstacle that had prevented some abolitionist countries from extraditing fugitives wanted by Lebanon. Once the law is published, nations that have ended capital punishment will no longer be able to cite its existence in Lebanese law as grounds for refusing extradition requests.
The vote follows nearly three decades of advocacy by Lebanese abolitionists, with organized campaigns dating back to 1997 when the first nationwide effort against capital punishment was launched in the country.
Regional and global context
Lebanon's decision runs counter to regional trends. In 2025, global executions surged to 2,707 people across 17 countries, the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 1981. Iran alone executed at least 2,159 people during that period.
Despite this global increase, the long-term international trend favors abolition. At the end of 2025, 113 countries were fully abolitionist, with 145 countries total having abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Lebanon also supported a 2024 United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on all nations to establish execution moratoriums as steps toward global abolition.
While a majority of Lebanon's 128-seat parliament supported the measure, Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc voted against the abolition, reflecting domestic political divisions on the issue.
