Gambia Suspends Execution Of Prisoners

President Yahya Jammeh

The Gambia has announced that it will be suspending the execution of death row inmates in the country.

The decision to put the execution of the death row inmates on hold was made yesterday by President Yahya Jammeh following a meeting with former Senegalese Prime Minister, Souleymane Ndene Ndiaye.

“President Jammeh has assured me that he is going to suspend the executions,” Mr Ndiaye told journalists after the meeting.

Nine prisoners including two Senegalese nationals have already been executed by a firing a squad since Mr Jammeh threatened to kill all death row inmates before the end of this month to curb crimes and terrorism looming as a threat to the country's stability.

"All punishment prescribed by the law will be maintained in the country to ensure that criminals get what they deserve, that is, those who killed are killed and those who deserve to be put away from the society are put away from the society in accordance with the law," he said.

"There is no way that my government would allow 99 per cent of the population to be held to ransom by criminals.”

Since the executions were announced, the Jammeh regime has been criticised by many western countries, regional groups and rights organisations such as Amnesty International which said death sentences in the country were ‘known to be used as a told against political opposition.’

It added: “Furthermore international standards of fair trials including presumption of innocence, access to lawyers and exclusion of any evidence obtained as a result of torture are often not respected.”

However, the Gambia government maintained that the execution of the prisoners was lawful and conducted according to the dictates of the 1997 Constitution of the country.

The government insisted that all the death row inmates have been tried by the Gambian courts of ‘competent jurisdiction’ and have exhausted all their legal rights of appeal as provided by the law

“The laws of the Gambia on death penalty are very clear and provides under Section 18(1) of the constitution of the Republic of the Gambia which states that no person shall be deprived of his or her lives intentionally; except in the execution of a sentence of death imposed by a court of competent jurisdiction in respect of criminal offence for which the penalty is death under the laws of the Gambia as they have effects in accordance with sub-section 2 of which he or she has lawfully been convicted in due compliance with the provisions of the law as above,” said Dr Njogu Lamin Bah, minister for Presidential Affairs.

Source: JollofNews, Sept. 14, 2012