FREETOWN, Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone has become the latest African state to abolish the death penalty after MPs voted unanimously to abandon the punishment.
An inmate at the Central Prison in Freetown, Sierra Leone, earlier this year. The country has imposed a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 1998. |
Last Friday the west African state became
the 23rd country on the continent to end capital punishment, which is largely a
legacy of colonial legal codes.
In April, Malawi ruled
that the death penalty was unconstitutional, while Chad abolished it in 2020.
In 2019, the African human rights court ruled that mandatory imposition of the
death penalty by Tanzania was “patently unfair”.
Of those countries that retain the death
penalty on their statute books, 17 are abolitionist in practice, according
to Amnesty International.
A de facto moratorium on the use of the
death penalty has existed in Sierra Leone since 1998, after the country
controversially executed 24 soldiers for
their alleged involvement in a coup attempt the year before.
Under Sierra Leone’s 1991 constitution,
the death penalty could be prescribed for murder, aggravated robbery, mutiny
and treason.
Last year, Sierra Leone handed down 39
death sentences, compared with 21 in 2019, according to Amnesty, and 94 people
were on death row in the country at the end of last year.
Rhiannon Davis, director of the women’s
rights group AdvocAid, said: “It’s a huge step forward for this
fundamental human right in Sierra Leone.
“This government, and previous
governments, haven’t chosen to [put convicts to death since 1998], but the next
government might have taken a different view,” she said.
“They [prisoners] spend their life on
death row, which in effect is a form of torture as you have been given a death
sentence that will not be carried out because of the moratorium, but you
constantly have this threat over you as there’s nothing in law to stop that
sentence being carried out.”
Davis said the abolition would be
particularly beneficial to women and girls accused of murdering an abuser.
“Previously, the death penalty was
mandatory in Sierra Leone, meaning a judge could not take into account any
mitigating circumstances, such as gender-based violence,” she said.
Umaru Napoleon Koroma, deputy minister of
justice, who has been involved in the abolition efforts, said sentencing people
on death row to “life imprisonment with the possibility of them reforming is
the way to go”.
Across sub-Saharan Africa last year
Amnesty researchers recorded a 36% drop in
executions compared with 2019 – from 25 to 16. Executions were carried out in
Botswana, Somalia and South Sudan.
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