Justice for a written report on the Rudolph Leroy West murder case.

The move could pave the way for West -- sentenced to death for murdering his estranged wife Rochelle Marcia West -- to be spared the gallows.

Meanwhile, in another development it emerged details about the West case were being given to Amnesty International officials in Britain.

"Amnesty International is unconditionally opposed to the death penalty,'' said Ms Clare Hatcher, chairperson of the Bermuda section of the human rights group.

Lord Waddington pointed out he had a duty under the Bermuda Constitution to act once a death sentence was imposed.

He said he would send the Chief Justice's report to the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy.

And after consulting the committee, the fate of 27-year-old West would then rest in his hands.

Lord Waddington, a former British Home Secretary tagged as a supporter of capital punishment, added Section 22 of the Constitution gave him certain powers. These included granting a pardon, delaying punishment, or substituting a lesser penalty.

"None of these powers can be exercised except after consultation with the Committee,'' he said.

After being pressed about how much his own views of capital punishment would influence the decision, Lord Waddington stressed: "`Let us take each stage at a time.'' It is believed to be the first time Lord Waddington has had to act over a death sentence in Bermuda.

Shortly after arriving in Bermuda in 1992, Lord Waddington told The Royal Gazette he would heed the Mercy Committee if faced with a life-or-death decision.

While not constitutionally bound to accept the advice, he said: "It wouldn't be right for my personal view on capital punishment to have a bearing.

"My views on the death penalty are irrelevant.'' Chief Justice the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward sentenced West on Tuesday for the premeditated murder of Rochelle West on January 5 this year.

She was stabbed to death at the Chamber of Commerce's Hamilton office, where she was a receptionist.

The Supreme Court heard that West, of Mullet Bay Road, St. George's, and his wife been going through difficult divorce proceedings.

It was claimed Rochelle West was frustrating her husband's attempts to finish the marriage, and on the day of the murder she failed to attend a divorce hearing.

Another allegation in the prosecution's summary of evidence was that West accused his wife of passing a disease on to him.

Attorney General Mr. Elliott Mottley said West poured sulphuric acid on his wife and stabbed her repeatedly with a knife.

Miss Patricia Harvey, defending, said West had only intended harming his wife when he entered the Chamber. She also refuted suggestions, aired by the media, that West had physically abused his wife.

It is uncertain at this stage whether West, who has made repeated suicide attempts, will appeal his sentence.

Legal sources have claimed it would be very unlikely for the death sentence to be carried out.

"I expect Amnesty International will get involved,'' the source said.

Ms Hatcher said the West case could not be taken up locally by AI -- because of the organisation's "home country rule''.

Under this rule, an AI section could only campaign on cases outside its country. This was because of the danger of governments victimising AI activists.

Ms Hatcher said her section was notifying AI's International Secretariat in London about the West death sentence.

And any action, usually in form of letter-writing, would stem initially from London.

Bermuda has been under pressure for some time from Britain to abolish the death penalty.

As recently as April 1994, the then Deputy Governor Mr. John Kelly said the UK's position was to "encourage'' Bermuda towards abolition.

In 1991, Britain banned executions in its five Caribbean colonies -- Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It wanted to bring the countries in line with its own policy of life imprisonment for murder.

Mr. Kelly said it was clear the British Government could not amend the death penalty legislation of a self-governing colony like Bermuda as easily as it could the laws of Caribbean islands.

But he added: "If someone were to be sentenced to hang, there would be a lot of pressure put on the British Government to deal with Bermuda's hanging law.'' Such pressure could come from Amnesty International, he said.

Mr. Kelly hoped a private member's bill would be introduced in Bermuda's Parliament to abolish hanging.

A Foreign Office spokesman in London this week said it was "premature'' to talk of Britain making an appeal for clemency to Bermuda over the West sentence.

"The full process of law has not been exhausted.'' The last people in Bermuda to die at the gallows were Erskine (Buck) Burrows and Larry Tacklyn in 1977, their deaths sparking large-scale riots.

Efforts to save West from hanging Burrows and Tacklyn were convicted of the so-called "supermarket'' murders in 1973.

Burrows was also convicted of murdering Governor Sir Richard Sharples in 1973 and Police Commissioner George Duckett the previous year.

In 1990, voters in Bermuda's first referendum decided to keep the death penalty. But only a third of the eligible voters went to the polls.