Tunisian president makes comments supporting death sentence

Tunisia's President Kais Saied said he supports the death penalty after public outrage over a woman’s murder sparked calls for executions to restart.

Tunisia carried out its last hanging in 1991, according to Amnesty International, but death by hanging remains on the statute books.

Anyone who kills a person for no reason deserves the death penalty,” Saied told the country's security council late Monday.

"Every society has its choices, we have our choices and principles, and th_e_ article exists. We will give him (perpetrator) all the conditions of self-defence, but if it is proved that he has killed one or more people, I don't think the solution is, like some consider, that the death penalty should not be imposed."

A man was arrested after the body of a 29-year-old woman, was discovered last week.

The justice ministry said that the suspect had previously been accused in an earlier murder case that was dismissed, without giving further details.