23 January 2007 :

The fight for the UN moratorium against the death penalty "is an ongoing one," said Massimo D'Alema, Foriegn Minister on Tg 1. D’Alema is in Brasil for talks with re-elected president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “We are for a moratorium on capital punishment. We still haven’t managed to take this issue to be voted on at the UN, because we preferred to first have a solution that would present a unified perspective from the European Union. We wanted a firm statement from the European countries to gather the support of the other countries. But it’s an ongoing fight.”
“In the meeting with Lula, I have also been discussing the deaht penalty and the execution of Saddam Hussein. The Brasilian president told me that as a politician and as a Christian, he is against the death penalty,” D’Alema said.