Death Penalty News

Sierra Leone had long allowed the use of death penalties, but has not carried out an execution since 1998 Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio on Friday signed a bill abolishing the death penalty, becoming the latest African state to ban capital punishment. The move comes after lawmakers in the West African country voted to end capital punishment in July , replacing the punishment with life imprisonment or a minimum 30-year jail term. "As a nation, we have today exorcised horrors of a cruel past," Bio said in a statement, adding that capital punishment is "inhumane". "We today affirm our belief in the sanctity of life," he added. Sierra Leone, which is still recovering after decades of civil war, had frequently come under fire from rights groups for keeping capital punishment on the books. The government announced that it would move to ban the death penalty in order to uphold human rights in May, before Sierra Leone's parliament approved an ab...

The debate on the death penalty is a subject that is cross-cutting on various dimensions of the law. There has been concerted global lobbying towards its abolishment. This is evidenced by, among other things, the passage of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty and a similar move being made by other regional entities such as the EU through its Protocols No 6 and 13 to the EU Convention on Human Rights. Similarly, the African front has not been left behind in this momentous tide of change, with Sierra Leone becoming the latest and the 23rd African country to abolish capital punishment. The Supreme Court of Kenya (SCOK), in 2017, passed a landmark decision on the death penalty—a decision which was then envisioned to be the herald of a new dawn for Kenya’s Criminal Justice System (CJS) in this area. However, new guidelines on that decision, issued by the same court in July 2021, appear to tes...

"30 years of visiting death row clients has taught me that these are vulnerable, damaged people, often with severe mental illness — while most have not had fair trials.” Saul Lehrfreund admits that last Friday was unusually rewarding. “When I went to work that morning, Sierra Leone still had the death penalty and there were 80 or 90 prisoners on death row,” he says. “When I left the office that evening, its parliament had voted to abolish it, and death row didn’t exist. All those prisoners, who’ve spent years expecting to be hanged — some will now be judged to have served their time, and released.” Lehrfreund has spent almost three decades fighting to save condemned inmates’ lives around the world. He and his colleagues — including, notably, a certain Keir Starmer QC — have won some highly significant cases, which have seen innocent people walk free and the numbers of death sentences and executions in several Commonwealth countries drastically reduced. But the decision taken by S...

Sierra Leone's president said he would sign the abolition of capital punishment, fulfilling a personal campaign pledge. Some 99 people in the country are currently sitting on death row. Lawmakers in Sierra Leone voted on Friday to abolish the death penalty, becoming the latest African country to ban the practice. Sierra Leone's 1991 constitution had allowed the use of the death penalty for aggravated robbery, murder, treason and mutiny. After Friday's vote, capital punishment will now be replaced with life imprisonment or a minimum 30-year jail term. The move to end the death penalty will affect some 99 people who were sitting on death row as of June 2021. 'An affront to civilized society' Although no execution has been carried out in Sierra Leone since 1998, with death sentences often commuted, the country had frequently come under fire from rights groups for not completely abolishing the practice. "Today, I have fulfilled a governance pledge to permanently ab...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 20 July 2021: MPs in Sierra Leone last week debated new laws that will abolish the death penalty in the case of persons convicted in Sierra Leone for murder under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, robbery with aggravation under the Larceny Act, 1916, mutiny under the Sierra Leone Military Forces Act 1961, treason and other related offences under the Treason and State Offences Act 1963. If passed into law, the new Act will make alternative provisions for the punishment of those who committed murder under the above Acts. Presenting the Bill, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Anthony Y. Brewah said that the intention of the Bill is not to eliminate the various offences, but to abolish the death penalty as a maximum sentence from our law books. Hindolo Moiwo Gevao MP, described the day as historic and thanked President Bio for the implementation of his manifesto promise on the abolition of the death penalty from our law books. He recalled how ...

Freetown (AFP) -- Sierra Leone's government will move to abolish the death penalty in the West African state, deputy justice minister Umaru Napoleon Koroma said on Wednesday. No execution has taken place in the country since 1998, and death penalties are often commuted. Sierra Leone, which is still recovering after decades of civil war, has frequently come under fire from rights groups for keeping capital punishment on the books. "Once the legislation goes to parliament and gets approved, that ends the story of the death penalty," Koroma told AFP. He added that the cabinet of President Julius Maada Bio had decided to push to abolish capital punishment in order to "uphold the fundamental human rights of Sierra Leoneans". The date of the cabinet's decision is unclear. But the government announced the move on Wednesday during a review of Sierra Leone's human rights record at the United Nations, Koroma said. The European Union's ambassador to Sierra Leon...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 9 May 2021: Sierra Leone’s High Court Resident Judge in the Kailahun District of the country – Justice Francis Banks-Kamara, on Friday 7th May 2021, sentenced a young man – Kholie Tamba to death by hanging, after he was found guilty of murder. The accused first appeared before Justice Banks-Kamara for the offence on 8th February 2021; and after three months of trial, judgment was delivered last Friday, with the jury unanimously returning a guilty verdict on one count indictment of murder. According to the particulars of offence, the accused Tamba Kholie, on a date unknown in September 2018 in Nyadehum Mabarbu in Luawa Chiefdom, Kailahun District, is said to have murdered one Amara Koroma. The case was prosecuted by State Counsel Daniel Mansaray, while Patrick Kamara Esq from the Legal Aid Board defended the accused. Addressing the jurors, Justice Banks-Kamara said they should be able to understand the elements constituting murder. He described the act of the acc...

As the world battles the deadly COVID-19 virus, countries across sub-Saharan Africa have taken a number of measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus in their territories. However, while efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic are a stark reminder that the right to life is important and must be protected, a new report by Amnesty International on the global use of the death penalty in 2019 shows that some governments in sub-Saharan Africa do not consistently seek to protect the right to life. In fact, in some instances they actively strive to violate it by sentencing people to death or executing them. Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan In 2019, four countries in the region – Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – carried out executions in their territories despite a 5% reduction in known executions in the world. Amnesty International confirmed one execution in Botswana, one in Sudan, 11 in South Sudan and 12 in Somalia. These four countries are increasi...

Not so long ago, abolition of the death penalty in Gambia seemed like a pipe dream. In August 2012, under the regime of former President Yahya Jammeh, nine prisoners were executed in one night. Not even their families or lawyers were notified beforehand, while the UN described the killings as “arbitrary”. Yet last month, on the 53rd anniversary of the country’s independence on 18 February, President Adama Barrow announced an official moratorium on executions as a step towards abolition of the death penalty.  Belatedly but resolutely, Gambia is moving away from this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Almost half of the 18 countries in West Africa have now abolished the death penalty . But not all countries are progressing on the death penalty, unfortunately some are taking steps backwards. In 2016, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Internal Affairs publicly ordered the gallows to be cleaned and affirmed his support of the death penalty, despite the former Attor...

In the newly released White Paper on the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) Report, the government indicated that it will retain the death penalty in Section 16 (1) of the 1991 Constitution. The CRC report was presented to the President on 24th January 2017, with several recommendations of which was a call for the abolition of the death penalty, under the theme Protection of Right to Life. The Section reads ... "No person shall be deprived of his life intentionally except in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence under the laws of Sierra Leone, of which he has been convicted." During consultations with Parliamentarians, they were in favour of abolishing the death penalty completely. The CRC also took account of numerous position papers including that of the HRCSL that had been received, and the responses from nationwide consultations where there was a clear majority call for the abolition of the death penalty. The Human Righ...