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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

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Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

Zambia commutes nearly 400 death sentences after abolition of death penalty

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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
Location: Zambia
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