Lebanon Abolishes Death Penalty, Replaces Death Sentences With Life Imprisonment

Lebanon’s parliament voted Tuesday to abolish the death penalty and replace all existing death sentences with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour, making it the first country in the Middle East to formally end capital punishment.

“Lebanon's parliament on Tuesday abolished the death penalty and replaced all existing death sentences with life imprisonment”

Reuters

The move formalised a de facto moratorium on executions since January 2004, but courts had continued to issue dozens of death sentences, with 85 people facing death sentences at the end of January 2026 according to Lebanon’s Directorate of Prisons.

Al Jazeera

Reuters reported that Lebanon’s parliament replaced all existing death sentences with life imprisonment and said crimes punishable by death included murder and treason.

Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Heba Morayef said the step “transforms a precarious hiatus in executions into lasting legal protection upholding the right to life,” as the European Union welcomed the abolition as “a powerful example for other countries” in the Middle East and beyond.

Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc voted against ending capital punishment, and the legislation was set to go before Lebanon’s cabinet before being submitted to President Joseph Aoun for approval.

The National reported that Lebanon’s parliament voted on Tuesday to remove the death penalty from law, replacing it with life in prison combined with aggravated hard labour, and that existing death sentences were also replaced with life imprisonment with hard labour.

Amnesty International

Justice Minister Adel Nassar called the approval “a historic step,” while Ramzi Kaiss, a Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the move marked “a definitive break with a cruel punishment that should never have been imposed.”

Hezbollah explained its opposition by arguing that the death penalty should not be abolished before lawmakers complete work on the general amnesty bill, saying that under the sequence proposed some prisoners sentenced to death could effectively benefit twice through commutation and then further reductions under amnesty.

International bodies and human rights groups welcomed Lebanon’s abolition, with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urging other countries that still retain the death penalty to follow suit and put an end to what he called an “inhumane practice.”

““I call on other countries that still retain the death penalty to follow suit and put an end to this inhumane practice.””

DW

The European Union welcomed the move and, in Reuters’ account, said Lebanon was setting “a powerful example for other countries” in the Middle East and beyond, while Amnesty International said the legal change would turn executions’ hiatus into “lasting legal protection.”

The law’s implementation path remained a focus, with DW saying the UN urged that the law be referred expeditiously to the President for signature and promulgation so it enters into full effect as soon as possible.

As Lebanon moved from de facto abolition to formal abolition, the broader global picture in Amnesty International’s monitoring showed 2,707 executions in 2025, up 78 percent from 1,518 in 2024, with Amnesty attributing the spike primarily to executions in Iran and noting its figures exclude what it says are thousands of executions carried out in China.