Would-be terrorist lived the high life

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CHINA has won its first gold medal for 2008 with Amnesty International saying the country leads the world in executions.

The Olympic host nation executed at least 470 people in 2007 out of a total of 1252 people executed worldwide.

Amnesty International claimed the real figure for executions in China may be much higher as execution figures are treated as a state secret.

"Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally and in all cases," said Amnesty International Australia’s national director, Claire Mallinson.

"The secretive use of the death penalty must stop. We demand that China, Vietnam, Mongolia and others must at the very least publicly admit how many people they execute."

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China had no plans to scrap the death penalty.

"The conditions are not right in China to abolish the death penalty, and would not be supported by the majority of the people,`` she said.

"But we severely control and cautiously use it to ensure that it is only used in a small minority of the most serious cases.``

She did not provide details on how many people were executed in China last year.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said China was executing people after unfair trials.

"As the world`s biggest executioner, China gets the gold medal for global executions," Ms Allen said.

"Everyone involved in this year`s Olympics, especially the International Olympics Committee, should be pressing China to reveal the extent of its use of the death penalty, to reduce the 60-plus crimes for which it can be imposed and to move toward abolition."

The International Herald Tribune reported Rosemary Foot, professor of international relations at St. Antony`s College at Oxford University, as saying Chinese leaders would be embarrassed by the report.

"Obviously, it`s an image issue," she said.

"It`s always going to be the phrase that`s on everyone`s lips, the highest number."

Amnesty’s Death Sentences and Executions report also found Iran executed at least 317 people, Saudi Arabia 143 and Pakistan 135 – in comparison to 177, 39 and 82 executions respectively in 2006.

The US was fifth in the rankings with 42 executions.

Up to 27,500 people were estimated to be on death row across the world.

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