President ends capital punishment

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa has approved a law that abolishes the death penalty with immediate effect. Amnesty hailed the decision as a ‘beacon of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region’, but expressed regret that the death penalty could be reinstated during a state of emergency. A BBC News report says Mnangagwa's move comes after Zimbabwe's Parliament voted earlier in December to scrap the death penalty. Zimbabwe last carried out an execution by hanging in 2005, but its courts continued to hand down the death sentence for serious crimes like murder. About 60 people were on death row at the end of 2023, according to Amnesty. They will be re-sentenced by the courts, with judges ordered to consider the nature of their crime, the time they spent on death row and their personal circumstances, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported. Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said the abolition of the death penalty was ‘more than a legal reform; it is a statement of our commitment to justice and humanity’. The death sentence was introduced in what is now Zimbabwe during British colonial rule. Mnangagwa has been a long-standing critic of capital punishment, citing his own experience of being sentenced to death in the 1960s for blowing up a train during the guerrilla war for independence. His sentence was later commuted to 10 years in prison. The Death Penalty Abolition Act was published in the government gazette last week.

Full BBC News report