Capital punishment in Luxembourg was abolished for all crimes in 1979.[1] [2]
After World War II, Luxembourgish courts sentenced 18 people, including 4 Germans and 11 Luxembourgish collaborators, to death for wartime crimes. Of those 18 convicts, 9 were executed, 7 were reprieved, and two sentenced in absentia. The last execution in Luxembourg took place in 1949.[1]
Luxembourg's last execution for ordinary crimes occurred on 7 August 1948, when Nikolaus Bernardy was shot for killing a family of three, as well as their farmhand and maid. Bernady was the only common criminal executed in Luxembourg since 1879.[3]
Luxembourg is a member of the European Union and of the Council of Europe; and has also signed and ratified Protocol No.13. Luxembourg is also a state party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; it signed the treaty on 13 February 1990 and ratified it on 12 February 1992.[4] Luxembourg voted in favor of the United Nations moratorium on capital punishment all eight times, in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020.