Abkhazia allows life or death for the most serious drug dealing

Abkhazia’s highest drug-supply and import penalty tiers took effect on 1 March 2020, allowing life imprisonment or death for the most serious cases. An amendment later that March limited those penalties to cases without mitigating circumstances, a restriction the Supreme Court reinforced in 2025.^[1][2]

Deputies argued for harsher punishment

Deputy Dmitry Dbar promoted the legislation as a response to overdose deaths and drug couriers arriving in Abkhazia. Reporting on the debate described a moratorium on executions dating from 1993, making the proposed capital drug penalties a significant departure in the drug-law debate.^[3]

The changes followed existing prison offences. The personal-possession rule introduced in 2012 prescribed one to three years in its ordinary tier, while supply already carried longer terms and fines.^[1]

The highest tier covered several circumstances

The supply offence’s highest tier covered organised-group activity, especially large quantities, use of an official position and offences involving a child under fourteen. The import offence had its own highest tier for organised groups, especially large quantities and use of an official position.^[1]

The code expressly notes that these penalty tiers commenced on 1 March 2020. The later March amendment recast the punishment as fifteen years with a fine, with life or death available where mitigating circumstances were absent.^[1]

That qualification mattered at sentencing: the presence of mitigation changed which punishments the court could impose.^[1]

Judges had to consider mitigation

In its October 2025 guidance, the Supreme Court expressly told judges that they could impose neither life imprisonment nor death where mitigating circumstances existed. It also explained further sentencing reductions for specified cooperation circumstances.^[2]

Separate general rules excluded women, people who committed the offence while under eighteen and men aged sixty-five by sentencing from the death penalty. The code also allowed presidential commutation of a death sentence.^[1]

Prosecutors later questioned the results

At a March 2023 coordination meeting, prosecutor’s-office official Daur Amichba argued that harsher drug penalties had not significantly reduced cases or the number of users. He proposed a central drug-control body and said enforcement mostly reached consumers and small dealers.^[4]

His criticism became part of the continuing debate over enforcement. The Abkhazia profile separates personal possession, growing and use from the most serious supply and import cases.