The Indonesian House of Representatives has endorsed a bill that threatens the death sentence to individuals who develop, produce and possess chemical weapons, local press said Wednesday.
The bill says the use, transfer and acts to facilitate the use of chemical weapons will be punishable by sentences ranging from four years' imprisonment to capital punishment.
Endorsed at a plenary season Tuesday, the bill also bans individuals from involvement in the use of chemical weapons for military purposes, reported The Jakarta Post newspaper.
In case of the misuse of chemicals by a corporation, owners or management board members will be held responsible for the crime.
The government is authorized to seize the assets, close down plants and revoke operational licenses of a firm found guilty.
While the bill bans trafficking of deadly toxic chemicals, it orders the strict control of the use of the least dangerous chemicals for industrial, medical, research, agricultural, pharmaceutical and defense purposes.
The bill also says Indonesia is open to international verification teams, whose inspections here must be conducted in the presence of a national team appointed by the national authority.
The bill was drafted to augment the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, which Indonesia ratified in 1998.
Source: Xinhua
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