Mongolia introduces moratorium on death penalty

Mongolia's president has today announced a moratorium on the death penalty.

Rights groups welcomed it as a step towards changing the country's law to ban executions completely.

President Elbegdorj Tsakhia said in a speech that the majority of the world's countries chose to abolish the death penalty and that Mongolia should follow that path as well.

His announcement this morning is far from a permanent shift, however.

Changing the law would require help from Mongolia's opposition-dominated legislature.

Information on the death penalty is a state secret in Mongolia, and it is not clear how many people the country has executed or when the most recent execution took place.