Capital punishment in the United Kingdom espionage from "all spies for the enemy" to spies on naval ships or bases. Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage. (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.) Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973. Hanging, however, remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum
Death penalty in the Bible Death penalty in the Bible The Bible records various proscriptions and instances of the death penalty. In the Genesis creation narrative (Book of Genesis 2:17), God tells Adam "But of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for on the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die." According to the Talmud, this verse is a death penalty. In Genesis 9:6, as part of the Noahide covenant, God tells Noah "Whoever sheds the blood of man through man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man."