The special rapporteur on extra judicial, summary and arbitrary executions said because of definitive nature of death sentence, a process leading to it must comply fully with the highest safeguards and fair-trial standards and must be in accordance with the restriction imposed by international law.

"In the United States, guarantees and safeguards as well as specific restrictions on capital punishment are not fully respected," the rapporteur concluded.

The report by the rapporteur, Bacre Waly Ndiaye of Senegal, came after an eighteen-day investigation during which he met officials and non government organistions and victims families and visited convicts on the death row.

While acknowledging the difficulties that authorities face in fighting violent crime, he favouredsolutions other than the increasing use of death penalty.

The report comes at a time when activists in the US are questioning the preponderance of blacks and other minority groups among convicts on the death row.

The rapporteur highlighted politics influencing the use of death penalty, especially during election campaigns.

Apparently, the UN official was referring to the candidates raising fears of security of families and children, promising to be tough on criminals and advocating death penalty or long sentences in prison to deter crime.

Ndiaye, said the use of death penalty in the US runs counter to the international trend towards decreasing the number of offences punishable by death and decision in many countries to abolish the capital punishment.

He also observed a tendency to increase the application of death penalty both at the state level and the federal level where its scope has been dramatically extended.