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Sierra Leonean lawmakers on Friday voted to abolish the death penalty, becoming the latest African country to move towards banning the death penalty.
A majority of deputies voted by acclamation in favor of an amendment abolishing the death penalty, according to an AFP journalist present in the chamber.
The death penalty will be replaced by life imprisonment or a minimum prison sentence of 30 years for crimes such as murder or mutiny.
No executions have taken place in the country since 1998, and death sentences have often been commuted.
But Sierra Leone, which is still recovering from decades of civil war, has often been criticized by human rights groups for keeping the death penalty on the books.
In May, Deputy Justice Minister Umaru Napoleon Koroma announced that the government would ban the death penalty in order to “defend the basic human rights of Sierra Leoneans”.
During a heated debate in the 146-member legislature on Friday, Mathew Nyumah, parliamentary leader of the ruling Sierra Leonean People’s Party, urged MPs to vote for abolition.
“Please understand that this is something we sacrifice to meet international best practice,” he said.
President Julius Maada Bio still has to sign the abolition voted by parliament before it becomes law.
The vote in Sierra Leone comes as the use of the death penalty is declining on the African continent and more and more countries are banning the practice.
Fall of executions
Sierra Leone’s 1991 constitution allows for the death penalty for aggravated theft, murder, treason and mutiny.
However, the last executions in the country took place in 1998, when 24 military officers were put to death after an attempted coup the previous year.
The former British colony rich in diamonds but poor was ravaged by a civil war from 1991 to 2002 which left 120,000 dead.
A truth and reconciliation commission created in 2005 to investigate the brutal conflict recommended the abolition of the death penalty, calling it an “affront to civilized society”.
But the authorities in this country of 7.5 million people resisted the immediate abolition of the death penalty, and courts sentenced 84 people to death between 2016 and 2020, according to the UN.
With the vote in parliament, Sierra Leone is poised to become the last African country to abolish the death penalty.
Malawi banned the death penalty in April, for example, and Chad abandoned the practice last year.
According to Amnesty International, 108 countries had completely abolished the death penalty by the end of 2020, while 144 had abolished it in law or in practice.
Executions and death sentences also fell in sub-Saharan Africa last year, the human rights group said.
Recorded death sentences fell 6%, from 325 in 2019 to 305 last year, while executions fell 36%, from 25 in 2019 to 16 in 2020.
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