By Wen Tao 

Beijing law department officials said Sunday that within the year, lethal injection will be adopted for all death penalty cases, and the training of officers responsible for the injections has finished, according to the Beijing Youth Daily Monday.

The remarks are alleged to have been made by judicial officials attending the ongoing annual meeting of the municipal People's Political Consultative Conference.

Bao Lei, director of communications for the Beijing High People's Court, told the Global Times Monday that he has no knowledge regarding the remarks but it is true the city is implementing the wider use of injections. "Other cities or provinces are taking the same approach; some are even ahead of Beijing."

Liu Zhongcheng, a Beijing-based death penalty lawyer, said in cases he was involved in, both injection and gunshots were used in Beijing. "There is no actual figures on how many convicts were executed by lethal injection or by gunshot. The authorities never release such figures, local or nationwide."

Liu welcomes the practice of more lethal injections for executions, because it is more humane. As for reports that say rich convicts or corrupt officials are more likely to be given lethal injections,

Liu said all criminals on death-row should have the right to lethal injections. Liu said injections are much cheaper than gunshots. After the one-off cost of purchasing a lethal injection vehicle or setting up an injection room, "the cost of each injection is very low."

Carrying out an execution by gunshot costs very little, but the control of the execution ground or the escort requires many personnel and transportation. "Both the judicial and social costs are very high," said Liu.

Sun Zhongwei, a specialist in death penalty research, thinks differently. "Many places do not have the injection facilities, but have mature gunshot execution systems." Sun said most lawyers on the bar think the same.

Rumors that convicts on death row have to pay for their executions, or "bullet cost," are not true. The government pays for the execution, "in some cases the government will cover cremation costs," Sun said. Chen Xiaoyu contributed to this story