Annual Death Penalty Survey from Amnesty International

Amnesty International today released its annual survey on use of the death penalty. According to Amnesty International, although 58 countries retained the death penalty in 2009, most did not use it. Only eighteen countries were known to have carried out executions, killing a total of 714. More than 500 of these are attributed to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The United States was the only country in the western hemisphere to conduct executions. In sub-Saharan Africa, only Sudan and Botswana imposed the death penalty. Two more countries, Togo and Burundi, abolished the death penalty during 2009.