Zimbabwe abolishes Death Penalty, prisoners on death row to be resentenced

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has signed into law the Death Penalty Abolition Act.

Zimbabwe currently has over 60 prisoners on death row who will now have their sentences commuted. The last execution in the country was nearly two decades ago in 2005.

Parliament had pushed to amend the Criminal Law Code, Criminal Procedure Law and the Defence Act which allowed the death penalty in cases of murder committed under aggravating circumstances.

International bodies such as Amnesty International have called for the removal of the death penalty, arguing it violates the right to life.

Mnangagwa had since expressed he is against capital punishment, sharing his own experience when his death sentence for blowing up a train during the 1960s war was commuted to 10 years in prison.

“Abolition of death penalty Notwithstanding any other law – no court shall impose sentence of death upon a person for any offence, whenever committed, but instead shall impose whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case;

“the Supreme Court shall not confirm a sentence of death imposed upon an appellant, whenever that sentence may have been imposed, but instead shall substitute whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case: no sentence of death, whenever imposed, shall be carried out,” reads part of the act.

“The Commissioner-General of the Prisons and Correctional Service shall do everything within their respective competences to ensure that, as soon as practicable after the fixed date, every prisoner under sentence of death is brought before the High Court to be sentenced afresh for the offence for which the death sentence was imposed upon him or her.”

In Africa, 24 countries including Zambia have fully abolished the death penalty.

Source: newzimbabwe.com, Staff, December 31, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Instagram | Telegram | Contact Us

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

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

‘I’ll be executed on Tuesday’: families reveal panicked last calls from foreigners on Saudi’s death row

Relatives share with the Guardian final words of those killed amid ‘horrifying’ surge in capital punishment under Mohammed bin Salman’s rule In the city of Tabuk in the far north of Saudi Arabia, neon lights flicker on in an overcrowded ward of a prison marking the start of a new day. The prisoners are waiting. When the guards enter, they know someone is about to be taken away. An execution squad of about 20 guards will approach an inmate quietly, whisper something in their ear and escort them out. Some break down in tears, others simply ask for forgiveness.

Oklahoma governor spares life of death row inmate just before scheduled lethal injection

Republican Kevin Stitt commuted Tremane Wood’s death sentence to life in prison for 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf Tremane Wood, the 46-year-old death row inmate who faced execution today in Oklahoma, has had his life spared just minutes before he was set to receive a lethal injection. Kevin Stitt, the state’s Republican governor, accepted the Oklahoma pardon and parole board’s recommendation that Wood’s sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole. It is just the second time during Stitt’s nearly seven years as governor that he has granted clemency.

South Carolina executes Stephen Bryant

South Carolina executes killer who left bloody message, marking third firing-squad execution this year A South Carolina man convicted of killing 3 people over 5 days more than 20 years ago was executed by a firing squad on Friday evening. Stephen Bryant, 44, was executed for killing a man in his home and writing "catch me if u can" on the wall with the victim's blood. He was pronounced dead at 6:05 p.m. following a firing squad. Three prison employees, all with live ammunition, volunteered to carry out the execution. Bryant is the 3rd man this year to die by South Carolina's newest execution method.

Tennessee | Death row inmate refuses to choose between electric chair and lethal injection

Harold Nichols is scheduled to die in December for raping and murdering a student Harold Wayne Nichols, a death row inmate in Tennessee, has declined to select his preferred execution method for his scheduled December 11 death. That means that the state will proceed with lethal injection. Nichols received his death sentence in 1990 after being found guilty of the rape and murder of Karen Pulley, a 21-year-old student at Chattanooga State University, which occurred two years prior.

Oklahoma board recommends clemency for inmate set to be executed next week

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester. Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

South Carolina man is scheduled to be executed by firing squad

A man on death row in South Carolina is scheduled to be executed by firing squad COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A man in South Carolina is scheduled to be executed Friday by a firing squad, the third person to die by that method in the state this year. Three prison employees, all with live ammunition, have volunteered to carry out the execution of Stephen Bryant, 44, who killed three people in five days in a rural area of the state in 2004. Bryant has no appeals pending before the 6 p.m. scheduled execution at the death row facility at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

UK | Lindsay Sandiford back in London

Two British drug convicts, including a grandmother who had been on death row in Indonesia for more than a decade, arrived back in the UK on Friday. Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year. Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the tourist island of Bali in 2013 for smuggling $2.14 million worth of cocaine into Indonesia. She was released on humanitarian grounds along with Shahab Shahabadi, 36, who had been serving a life sentence for drug offences after his arrest in 2014.

Woman who watched nearly 300 executions explained moment she had to give it up

Michelle Lyons' job wasn't for the fainthearted A woman who watched nearly 300 death row executions take place over 12 years opened up about how her macabre career impacted her life. For more than a decade, it was part of Michelle Lyons' job description to observe the final moments of hundreds of prisoners in the US state of Texas. She says the process never 'become mundane or normal', although she did become acclimatized to it - as she went on to watch so many executions that she 'can't recall' a lot of them.

Florida | Military vets are third of inmates executed in Florida this year, report finds

A new report finds that five of the 15 people executed in Florida this year were military veterans. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defending his modern-era record for executions this year, saying he is bringing justice to the families of victims. But a new report reveals some troubling data: Five of the 15 convicted murderers executed this year in Florida were military veterans.

Syria | Man to be hanged for harrowing murder of eight-year-old girl, in first death sentence since Assad ouster

A court in northeast Syria has sentenced a man to death by hanging after finding him guilty of raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl. Youssef al-Dahham, 25, was convicted of raping and murdering the child in the village of Muhkan in Deir az-Zour governorate. Security forces announced on 13 August the arrest of Dahham, who reportedly confessed to the crime after interrogation. The crime dates back to August, when Dahham snatched the girl outside her home, raped and murdered her.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog