 Following the abolition of the death penalty, life imprisonment was made an official punishment in 1878.A few years after gaining independence in 1815, the Kingdom of the Netherlands determined that the death penalty could be carried out through beheading.Between 1945 and 1952 several war criminals from World War II were sentenced to death by the Bijzonder Gerechtshof for treason of the State of the Netherlands and the deportation of Dutch Jews.