FEATURED POST

Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

Published
Image
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Zimbabwe hangman raises execution fears

Published
Harare, Zimbabwe - In Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, there are 77 convicts who have been condemned to death by hanging.

Held in solitary confinement in cells close to the gallows, some of those condemned to death have been there for more than a decade, their appeals rejected by President Robert Mugabe.

Although the death penalty is still on the books in Zimbabwe, there have been no executions since 2004, in part because there was no hangman.

But a macabre development could potentially activate the dormant penalty. Years of unsuccessful headhunting by the country’s Justice and Legal Affairs ended last September with a sombre announcement by Justice and Legal Affairs secretary David Mangota: the government had secured a hangman who was "raring to go".

Little is known of the hangman, who is rumoured to be from Malawi. Authorities have refused to clear any interviews with him.

The announcement came as a surprise, given the ambivalence within the Zimbabwean criminal justice system about executions. Although capital punishment was codified during British rule, which ended in 1980, evolving jurisprudence and new sensitivities within Zimbabwe have limited the actual practice to the barest minimum.

The recruitment has sharply divided the government - formed between President Robert Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now prime minister.

The Justice and Legal Affairs ministry is a shared portfolio: minister Chinamasa belongs to Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and his deputy Obert Gutu is a member of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Chinamasa says in a country with high levels of violence and regular reports of grisly rapes and murders, the perpetrators of such crimes are "worthy" of death sentences.

However, his deputy Gutu is staunchly opposed to the recruitment.

"It's bizarre and odious in the extreme," the deputy minister said. "Whoever sanctioned the hiring of a hangman at this juncture of Zimbabwe's jurisprudential history is obviously of unsound mind. For how else can you describe such an absurd decision to engage the services of a hangman when the draft constitution has made it quite apparent that the death penalty is on its way out?

Gutu added that there will not be any executions taking place in the near future.


Source: Aljazeera, March 30, 2013
Location: Zimbabwe
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

Published
Image
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
Read more

Japan | Death-row inmates' lawsuit targeting same-day notifications of executions dismissed

Published
Image
The Osaka District Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by death row inmates that claimed same-day notifications of executions violate the Constitution — the first ruling of its kind. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the government in hopes of sparking a wider discussion on the rights of death row prisoners. They also sought ¥22 million in compensation and plan to appeal to a higher court.
Read more

Texas | State district judge recommends overturning Melissa Lucio’s death sentence

Published
Image
In a rare joint statement, the district attorney and the defense agreed that prosecutors withheld evidence that could point to a Rio Grande Valley woman’s innocence in the death of her toddler. A district judge who previously presided over a woman’s capital murder case recommended last week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturn Melissa Lucio's 2008 conviction after a district attorney’s office admitted that prosecutors withheld evidence from her defense.
Read more

Iran | Probable Child Offender and Child Bride, Husband Executed for Drug Charges

Published
Image
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 15 2024: Marjan Hajizadeh and Esmail Hassaniani, a couple sentenced to death for drug-related charges in a joint case, were executed in Zanjan Central Prison.  Marjan is reported to have been 16 at the time of arrest, which IHRNGO is working to confirm. If verified, she will be the first child offender executed for drug charges since 2014. She was also a child bride forced into marriage.
Read more

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Arizona death penalty case that could redefine historic precedent

Published
Image
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments centering on an Arizona death row prisoner that could set new precedent to determining ineffective assistance of counsel.  A Mohave County Superior Court jury convicted Danny Lee Jones for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver and his daughter Tisha, as well as the attempted murder of Weaver’s grandmother. A judge sentenced Jones to death for the two murders.
Read more

Bill Moves Forward to Prevent Use of Nitrogen Gas Asphyxiation in Louisiana Executions

Published
Image
There’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430. When Louisiana legislators approved the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation as an execution method during a second special legislative session in February, the move attracted national attention; not the least because it has only been used in the U.S. once. That’s when Alabama executed convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith on January 25th of this year. Now there’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430.
Read more

Iraq postpones vote on bill including death penalty for same-sex acts

Published
Image
BAGHDAD, April 15 (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers postponed voting on Monday on a bill that includes the death penalty or life in prison for same-sex relations - a measure that diplomats from Western countries said could have serious consequences for Iraq's political and economic ties if it goes through. Parliament was in session on Monday, with the bill - an amendment to an anti-prostitution law - second on its agenda.
Read more

Alabama lawmakers reject bill which would allow some death row inmates to be resentenced

Published
Image
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - An Alabama House committee rejected a bill that would have impacted sentences for dozens of death row inmates. The proposal would have required courts to resentence people sentenced to death by a judge who overrode a jury’s recommendation of life in prison. That practice was outlawed in 2017. Representative Chris England passionately argued it should be retroactively applied for more than 30 death row inmates who were sentenced to death over a jury’s recommendation.
Read more