Death Penalty News

Responding to an announcement by Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema on Friday 23 December 2022, that he had assented to a law banning the death penalty and the offence of criminal defamation of the president, Tigere Chagutah Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa said: “Amnesty International welcomes the announcement by President Hichilema that the death penalty has been abolished in Zambia. This is a good and progressive move that shows the country’s commitment to protecting the right to life.

The Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal abolished the death penalty in April, the most notable decision against capital punishment since the South African Constitutional Court found the penalty unconstitutional in 1995 . The Malawian decision is significant because Malawi’s constitution specifically provides for the death penalty (in Article 16), unlike the unqualified right to life in the South African constitution . The Malawian decision ended years of confusion over the status of the remaining 37 prisoners on death row. Nearly 15 years ago, the Malawi High Court abolished the mandatory death penalty for murder . It had found that an automatic death sentence did not sufficiently individualise sentencing and, therefore, was cruel and degrading punishment. But, the ruling was not clearly retroactive. Many defendants were still appealing their mandatory death sentences or had them commuted to life imprisonment without ever having a sentencing hearing. This “grey area” led to the latest c...

Zambia last executed someone in 1997, and neighboring countries have long outlawed capital punishment. Even as courts continue to condemn convicts to death row, many organizations are asking Zambians: Isn’t it time to abolish the death penalty? LUSAKA, ZAMBIA — On January 24, 1997, Frederick Chiluba, then the president of Zambia, pardoned 600 inmates from a federal prison. On the same day, eight prisoners were hung. Seven had been convicted of murder, and one had been convicted of both murder and armed robbery. Christopher Siame, a murder convict formerly on death row, says he’ll never forget how he felt at the time. “I went into prison shortly after the 1997 execution,” recounts Siame, whose sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2008 and who later became a free man thanks to a presidential pardon. “It was horrifying to hear the cells being opened in the condemned section. We thought we were next to be hanged,” he says nervously. The execution of the eight i...