Zambia commutes nearly 400 death sentences after abolition of death penalty

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has commuted 390 death sentences to life imprisonment, six weeks after he abolished capital punishment, a cabinet minister said Wednesday.

“So as it stands, we now do not have any inmates serving a death sentence following the abolishing of the death penalty,” Home Affairs Minister Jack Mwiimbu, told a news conference.

The 390 prisoners, including 11 women — all being held at Mukobeko maximum security prison in Kabwe, a town around 150 kilometres (95 miles) north of the Zambian capital Lusaka — will now serve life terms.

Hichilema, whose party was in opposition for over two decades, had promised that he would scrap capital punishment if elected to the top job.

He abolished the law enshrining the death sentence just two days before Christmas Day last year, in the largely Christian country.

Zambia which gained independence from British rule in 1964, and is home to 18 million people, became the 25th country in sub-Saharan Africa to abolish the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, February 8, 2023

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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