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Banjul — Gambia’s president Yahya Jammeh has warned that death row inmates should expect to have their sentences implemented, apparently signalling an end to a three-year unofficial moratorium on executions. The military strongman said in a meeting with religious leaders broadcast on state television late onFriday that the move was a response to the spiralling murder rate.
“During Ramadan, someone buried her child alive. Three days before Ramadan, someone in the Upper River Region threatened to kill someone and ended up killing the individual,” he said.
He did not say whether death sentences for convicts already on death row would be brought forward, but he appeared to pre-empt criticism of any move to resume executions. “If I’m driving a vehicle on the road and you decide to cross in front of the vehicle, if the vehicle knocks you down and you die, am I the one that killed you or are you the one that killed yourself?” he said.
No official crime statistics are released by the government of mainland Africa’s smallest country, which is surrounded by Senegal except for a narrow strip of Atlantic coast.
Jammeh announced in August 2012 that all death row prisoners would be executed by mid-September that year. — AFP
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