Zimbabwe Scraps Death Penalty, Existing Sentences to Be Commuted as Jail Term

HARARE: Zimbabwe has abolished the death penalty on Tuesday, a widely expected move in a country that last carried out the punishment nearly two decades ago.

The law was scrapped after President Emmerson Mnangagwa approved the bill this week following its passage through Parliament. The law will commute the sentences of about 60 prisoners on death row to jail time.

Notably, President Emmerson Mnangagwa once faced the death penalty himself in the 1960s during the war of independence.

Zimbabwe has about 60 prisoners on death row, and the new law spares them. The Death Penalty Abolition Act states that courts cannot impose a sentence of capital punishment for any offense, and any existing death sentences must be commuted to jail time.

The country last executed someone in 2005, partly because, at one point, no one was willing to take up the job of state executioner.

However, one provision states that the suspension of the death penalty may be lifted during a state of emergency.

A Historic Shift in Zimbabwe's Justice System

Amnesty International on Tuesday described the law as “a beacon of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region.”

Other African countries, such as Kenya, Liberia, and Ghana, have recently taken “positive steps” toward abolishing the death penalty but have yet to put it into law, according to the human rights group, which campaigns against the death penalty.

Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe’s leader since 2017, has publicly spoken of his opposition to capital punishment. He has cited his experience of being sentenced to death — later commuted to 10 years in prison — for blowing up a train during the war of independence from white minority rule.

He has also used presidential amnesties to commute death sentences to life in prison.

According to Amnesty International, about three-quarters of countries in the world use capital punishment. It says 24 African countries have fully abolished the death penalty, among 113 countries globally.

Amnesty International said it recorded 1,153 known executions globally in 2023, up from 883 the previous year, although the number of countries that carried out executions declined from 20 to 16. Due to a veil of secrecy, the figures do not include those in North Korea, Vietnam, and China, which the rights group has described as the “world’s leading executioner.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for almost 90% of all executions recorded by Amnesty in 2023, followed by Somalia and the U.S.

(Inputs from AP)