Capital punishment is legal in most countries of the Middle East. Much of the motivation for the retention of the death penalty has been religious in nature, as the Qur'an allows or mandates executions for various offences.
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Israel
Almost all death penalties were abolished by legislation in 1954 except for serious crimes committed during wartime. The last execution to ever take place in Israel was that of Adolf Eichmann, who was convicted for his role in the Holocaust, in 1962. A moratorium has since been placed on all further executions, and Jewish religious law makes the death penalty difficult for rabbinical authorities to discuss.
Turkey
In Turkey, capital punishment was fully abolished in 2004 for all crimes.
Attempts
In Lebanon in 2008, then-Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar introduced a draft law to Parliament which would abolish the death penalty. While the law failed to pass, he continued to advocate for the abolition for the rest of his time in office.
Farouk Ksentini, chairman of Algeria's National Advisory Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (CNCPPDH), stated in 2010 that he would advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. This aroused opposition from Islamist groups.