That is true. And it is even the official definition by the RAE, maybe it is a Dominican usage. The only times we use ‘ajusticiamiento’ is to refer to the assasination of tyrants (criminals in their own way, I suppose).
By the way, the execution of a criminal is usually refer to as ‘ejecución’.
If it’s the same than in France, it could be a legal difference (assassination being a planned murder, I understand it would be what’s called 1st degree murder in Americanese).
Asasinato is the general term in Spanish, including when someone is shot in a hold-up or killed in a bar fight, as well as a planned murder like a gang killing.
I quickly googled around, and actually, it’s not true, from a legal point of view (which is what I was refering to). Depending on the country, the legal definitation may change. For instance, it seems that in Spain “asesinato” refers specifically to aggravated or premeditated murder while in Argentina, there’s no legal definition of the word.
A site mentions the following (I’m not sure to which country it refers, perhaps Mexico) :
"The most accurate translation can be found in Butterworth’s Legal Dictionary, which gives asesinato con premeditación o alevosía, o cometido en relación con un hecho punible con pena de muerte o de prisión perpetua for “first-degree murder” and homicidio doloso, pero sin premeditación ni alevosía for “second-degree murder.”
Perhaps. I was referring to the way the word is used in common speech, and as I see it used in the tabloids. And it would seem even the legal distinction is not universal in Spanish. I don’t know if there is a legal difference in Panama.
He knew who she was and attacked her because of who she was, but it wasn’t a planned assassination. He just came across her accidentally and well, his lack of mental stability handled the rest.
OED says:
assassinate: kill (esp. of a political or religious leader) for political or religious motives. Assassination.
murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by another (cf. manslaughter).
manslaughter. 1. The killing of a human being. 2. Law. The unlawful killing of a human being without malice or aforethought.
Having just read Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his cabinet, I was initially bemused by the use of the word “assassinated” in the contemporary reports, along the lines of “The president and Mr. Seward have been assassinated; the president is dead.” Although Seward was alive, it appears that the nature of the attack corresponds to definition number 1 above.
If the definition suggests that assassination is impersonal, maybe it’s more of a legal twist to the traditional “motive, method and opportunity” hooks we find for more common murders.
An assassin had method and opportunity, but he really didn’t have any personal reason to kill the target, except that he was paid to do so.
“I don’t really hate you
I don’t care what you do
We were made for each other
Me and you
I want to be somebody
You were like that too”
—Peter Gabriel, “Family Snapshot” (best assassin song ever)
Both are subsets of homicide and both are a matter of definition. The law defines murder as distinct from manslaughter and all of the other lesser included offenses.
Irrespective of the etymology of the word, assassin in the US today means some who commits homicide, usually for political reasons.