Execution for huge theft?

[nancylebov]

This is a do my homework sort of question, but I think I've heard of a country that has capital punishment for looting the treasury? Is this true? If so, was it ever enforced?

Mindworm: "really large number"

Comments

[zenlizard]

Only in the case of violent revolutions or coups-de-etat. But this is going off the top of my head, not from checking references.

And in those cases, the execution was probably as much for being on the losing side, as it was for the wrongdoing.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Doesn't China effectively have that? They have certainly executed officials for corruption.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Saddam's Iraq. Of course, no prosecutor had the guts to indict him, or his family, but others were beheaded. It was the one thing, under existing Iraqi law, we could have legitimately given him the death penalty for.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

If theft is sufficiently great to qualify for treason, there are countries that execute for that.