"The death penalty is exceptional in nature and may only be imposed in the cases expressly established by law and shall only be executed after all legal remedies haves been exhausted. The death penalty may not be imposed: 1. For political crimes 2. When the conviction is based on presumptions. 3. On women. 4. On men over sixty years of age. 5. On those whose extradition has been granted under this condition. In such cases, and provided the death penalty has been commuted to deprivation of liberty, the maximum term of imprisonment shall be applied."20 32. Article 132 of the Criminal Code in force in 1995 criminalized murder in the following terms: "Murder will be committed by whoever kills a person: 1) With premeditation; 2) For a price, reward, promise, with a profit motive; 3) Through or on the occasion of a flood, fire, poison, explosion, collapsing of a building or any other affectation that may cause great damage; 4) With known premeditation; 5) With cruelty; 6) With the impulse of brutal perversity; 7) To prepare, facilitate, commit and hide another crime or to guarantee its results or immunity for themselves or their coparticipants or for not having obtained the result proposed when attempting the other punishable act; A prison sentence of 20 to 30 years will be imposed on the offender convicted of murder, however, the death penalty will be imposed instead of the maximum prison time, if due to the circumstance of the acts and of the occasion, the way it was carried out and the determining motives, a greater dangerousness of the agent is revealed.”21 33. The death penalty was occasionally applied in Guatemala until the 1990s. However, from 1996 onwards the State resumed its use, first by firing squad, in accordance with Decree No. 234 of the Congress of the Republic,22 and then by lethal injection, after Decree No. 234 was repealed by Decree No. 100-96 of November 1996, which established this new method of execution.23 e. On those convicted and whose extradition has been granted under this condition. All pertinent legal remedies, including cassation, shall be admissible against a sentence imposing the death penalty; the remedy of cassation will always be admitted for its processing. The sentence shall be executed after all remedies have been exhausted. The Congress of the Republic may abolish the death penalty". 20 Legislative Decree No. 17/73 (Criminal Code) issued by the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala on July 5, 1973. 21 Legislative Decree No. 17-73 (Criminal Code) issued by the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala on July 5, 1973. Article 5 of Decree No. 20-96 of May 9, 1996, amended the term of imprisonment for this type of offence to 25 to 50 years (Decree No. 20-96 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala of May 9, 1996). 22 Decree No. 234 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, May 21, 1946. 23 Law establishing the procedure for the execution of the death penalty. Decree No. 100-96 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala of 28 November 1996. Article 7 provides: “After the decisions referred to in the preceding article have been read, the death penalty shall be executed by the procedure of lethal injection [...]”. 10