Zimbabwe abolishes the death penalty, 20 years after the last execution

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Zimbabwe officially abolished the death penalty after President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday promulgated a bill which commutes to imprisonment the sentences of around sixty death row inmates.

The last execution in the country took place almost two decades ago, in 2005, and President Emmerson Mnangagwa himself was sentenced to death in the 1960s, during Zimbabwe’s war for independence.

L’ONG Amnesty International welcomed the new law on Tuesday.

In a message published on X, the human rights organization described this measure as great progress for the country and a major step in the fight against “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments”.

She also described her as a “ray of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region”.

Other African countries, such as Kenya, Liberia and Ghana, have also recently taken “positive measures” with a view to abolishing the death penalty, but have not yet adopted a law to this effect, according to Amnesty International.

The Zimbabwean leader has publicly expressed his opposition to the death penalty since 2017recalling his own death sentence – which was later replaced by a 10-year prison sentence – for blowing up a train during his country’s war to liberate his country from the yoke of the white minority.

He also used his presidential powers on several occasions to commute death sentences of inmates to life sentences.

According to Amnesty, 113 countries around the world, including 24 in Africa, have completely abolished the death penalty. The organization says it has recorded nearly 1,200 known executions worldwide in 2023, a sharp increase from fewer than 900 cases recorded the previous year.

Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for almost 90% of all known executions recorded by Amnesty in 2023, followed by Somalia and the United States. The organization says it will continue to campaign against capital punishment until it is completely abolished.

Additional sources • AP