KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (CMC):

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said the death penalty should remain on statue books here to be used as a sentencing option for certain types of murders.

"The government is firm on that. The death penalty should remain," he told reporters, noting that he was certain that over 90 per cent of Vincentian nationals supported the death penalty.

He said St Vincent and the Grenadines had started a process of constitutional reform and he believed that there would be a consensus for a tightening of the death penalty laws.

Gonsalves, who is a Roman Catholic, told reporters that although the church frowned on the death penalty he did not have to agree with everything that his church subscribed to.