Capital punishment inBelgium was formally abolished on August 1, 1996, for all crimes, in both peacetime and wartime.[1] The last execution for crimes committed in peacetime took place in July 1863, when inYpres a farmer was executed formurder. The last execution for an ordinary crime took place on 26 March 1918 at Veurne Prison whenEmile Ferfaille, a military officer found guilty of killing his pregnant girlfriend, wasguillotined. This was the first execution to be carried out since 1863. The guillotine that was used had to be imported fromFrance.
Between November 1944 and August 1950, 242 people were executed byfiring squad for crimes committed during theSecond World War. 241 of them had been convicted ascollaborators. A total of 2,940 persons were sentenced to death in that period, but only 242 executions were carried out. The last person ever to be executed in Belgium was theGermanwar criminalPhilipp Schmitt on 8 August 1950, the camp commander of theconcentration campFort Breendonk. Although the Belgian Penal Code stipulated that the death penalty had to be carried out bydecapitation, the 242 persons executed after the Second World War were tried by a military court and so they wereexecuted by firing squad.
The death penalty is abolished.
On 1 January 1999, theSixth Protocol to the European Convention of Human Rights, forbidding the death penalty in all circumstances, came into force and Belgium has also signed the second optional protocol of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. On 2 February 2005, the prohibition of the death penalty was also included in theBelgian Constitution by inserting an Article 14bis.
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