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Sierra Loene's Attorney General and Minister of Justice - Franklyn Bai Kargbo
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Hanging Rope
On May 2nd, Sierra Leone made a great move forward by deciding to eliminate the death penalty. Speaking in Geneva, before the United Nations Committee Against Torture, Attorney General and Minister of Justice - Hon. Franklyn Bai Kargbo said that his office has received strict instructions from President Ernest Bai Koroma on the issue.
President Koroma seems to want this done swiftly and Kargbo has suggested that a law to make it official will be ready in “in the space of a few weeks”. Kargbo also announced that the sentences of the country’s last death row inmates have been converted to life imprisonments.
Providing Sierra Leone follows through on its promise, it will become the sixth African country in the past 10 years to have fully abolished the death penalty, continuing the regional trend of moving away from capital punishment. Yet 19 of the African Union’s 54 member States still have the death penalty in law or practice. Three (Nigeria, Sudan and Somalia) of which, accounted for more than 90% of all reported executions carried out in Africa last year.
Even though Sierra Leone hasn’t used the death penalty since 1998, it is worth getting rid of as it is still poses a risk to its population. Nigeria is the perfect example that they don’t want to follow. They hadn’t exercised the death penalty in seven years but resumed it last year after President Goodluck Jonathan green-lit it. He ruthlessly stated that he wanted more death warrants "no matter how painful".
His motivations being that it could free up space in Nigeria’s severely overcrowded prisons. It was a worrying and barbaric move by the country, which still puts put over 1,000 death row prisoners at risk, a lot of which are women.
Solomon Sogbandi, Director of Amnesty International Sierra Leone welcomed Sierra Leone’s development regarding the issue, noting “We are delighted that Sierra Leone is becoming serious about also moving away from state-sanctioned killing”. He also added “More and more countries are coming around to the fact that the death penalty is a human rights violation and has no special deterrent effect on crime,” a statement anyone who values human rights would agree with.
Now we can only hope that Sierra Leone’s legislation will pass and inspire the remaining nine African countries to properly abolish any death penalties they may have. A reduction in the worrying amount of executions taking place in Africa is needed to improve our global image.