MP Amadou Ba, a member of the Pastef (power) party, spoke out in favor of reinstating the death penalty in Senegal, amid national outrage following the brutal murder of Diary Sow, a 12-year-old girl found died in a room in Malika in the suburbs of Dakar.
“The rape and murder of children shock the collective conscience to such an extent that a referendum on the death penalty to punish these crimes would receive a super majority,” the parliamentarian wrote on his Facebook page, adding that “Senegalese society neither encourages nor tolerates any culture of rape.”
According to investigators, the main suspect admitted the facts, claiming to have strangled the young girl while he was under the influence of drugs, including crack.
For Amadou Ba, the increase in these criminal acts calls for in-depth reflection. “The causes of these deviations are multiple and complex. We must mobilize our specialists and our religious leaders to analyze this phenomenon and identify the most appropriate psychiatric and penal responses,” he declared.
This position revives the debate on the death penalty in Senegal, abolished in 2004, but regularly mentioned in public discussions during crimes of such seriousness.
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