Criminal Reaction to Intentional Homicide in Mesopotamian Civilization

Mesopotamian civilization is the most important codified civilization known to man. In this ancient civilization, with the expansion of civil society in order to maintain government and social order, a collection of codified laws was formulated for the first time during human life. In these laws, a set of crimes with special punishments was determined. The Intentional homicide of another person with the death penalty, which was one of the most important and fundamental crimes, formed for the first time a special relationship between the victim, the crime and the offender. Because it was based on revenge and compatibility with human nature. At the beginning of the murder regulations, the death penalty and then the punishment of retribution is determined as a main punishment for this crime. However, with the emergence of social relations and the establishment of an institution as a principle of valuation, the formation of trade, ie the relationship between debtor and creditor, the law of financial loss or ransom entered the collection of criminal laws. Although there are differences of opinion on the precedence and latency of the two. Therefore, the first punishment for Intentional homicide, death penalty, retribution and then ransom was imposed, although there is a difference of opinion on the precedence and recency of these two. These laws suffer from fundamental inadequacies and discrimination, but because they are one of the first human laws, they are considered a major improvement in legislation. Therefore, in this article, we examine the punishment of Intentional homicide - which is one of the most important and challenging crimes of humanity not only in the past, but also in today's society in Mesopotamian civilization.