Northeastern Liaoning Province has fully abated shooting as a means of execution after the last four cities in the province began to adopt lethal injection early this month, provincial legal authorities said Thursday.

The province's other ten cities adopted lethal injection early this year, said a source with the provincial higher people's court.

Lethal injection was first used in Liaoning in 2001 to execute two convicted murderers in Shenyang, the provincial capital.

Southwestern Yunnan Province was the first province in China to fully abandon execution by shooting in 2003.

The country's amended criminal procedure law which took effect in 1997 made executions by lethal injection a legitimate option. The first lethal injection in the country was done in Kunming, provincial capital of Yunnan, on March 28, 1997.

"Lethal injection reduces the pain and fear of the criminal. It is a more humane way in carrying out execution," said Mou Ruijin, associate professor of the Law School of Northeast University.

Officials from the Liaoning Provincial Higher People's Court said lethal injection was more acceptable for convicts and their family members.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2009)