Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has approved a law that abolishes the de.ath penalty with immediate effect
Rights group Amnesty hailed the decision as a “beacon of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region”, but expressed regret that the de.ath penalty could be reinstated during a state of emergency.
Mnangagwa’s move comes after Zimbabwe’s parliament voted earlier in December to scrap the de.ath 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 de.ath 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 reports.
The de.ath 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 de.ath in the 1960s for blowing up a train during the guerrilla war for independence.
His sentence was later commuted to 10 years in prison.
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