By Kemo Cham
The death penalty is a bad law which should be done away with, the rights group Amnesty International has said as a fresh debate on the fate of the divisive law in Sierra Leone takes center stage following the sentencing recently of a famous magician.
Baimba Moiforay, better known as LAC, was handed the death sentence alongside co-accused Foday Amara Kamara after the two were found guilty by the Freetown High Court. They conspired to murder popular DJ, Sydney Buckle, better known as DJ Cleff, the court found.
Cleff’s decomposed body was found several days after he was killed at a night party organized at the residence of LAC. The case attracted a huge public attention.
Presiding Judge, Alusine Sesay, ruled that the two convicts should be hanged, in addition to a life time.
From taxis to Poda Podas [commercial transport vans] to ‘Attaya Bases’, whether or not to retain the death penalty has been one of the top discussion subjects within the last few weeks since the verdict was announced on September 1.
For the pro-abolitionists, the debate has become difficult given that the sentencing of LAC and his co-accused came at the backdrop of rising gang violence that has been characterized by reports of deaths in parts of the city of Freetown.
Security officials have been grappling with the volatile situation that has mainly affected the eastern part of the city.
Internal Affairs Minister, Alfred Palo Conteh, recently took the debate to another level when he openly supported the idea of retaining the death penalty. The tough talking retired army major even vowed that government would carry out the sentence without delay if authorized by relevant authorities.
He also reportedly said he’d ordered authorities at the Freetown Correctional Center to clean up the gallows in readiness for the execution of the first convict on death row.
“The general argument of the people is that if you have the death penalty being implemented it will serve as a deterrent…but it has never and will never act as a deterrent,” said Solomon Sogbandi, Director of Amnesty International Sierra Leone.
Amnesty is a leading campaigner globally for the abolition of the death penalty. According to the rights group, currently there are 58 countries which have the law in their books. 33 of these have moratorium on the practice. Sierra Leone is one of them.
In 2012 the London-headquartered organization conferred on President Ernest Bai Koroma the ‘Abolitionist of the Year’ award for his move in putting a halt to execution.
But the group wants to see the law totally expunged from the law books. And it has been leading a sustained campaign for this.
The ongoing constitutional review process offers a perfect opportunity, at least until recently.
Mr Sogbandi, as a member of the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC), said until now public perception about the law had been changing towards abolitionism.
Until now the argument in favor of abolition had been gaining traction, he told Politico, explaining that as a member of the CRC, nationwide consultations conducted on the issue indicated that public opinion about the law had narrowed to a 60:40 ratio, with 40 percent of the population calling for abolition.
Sogbandi regretted that the current spate of violence was changing perception towards the campaign. But he insisted that the best way to handle rise in crime is not through ‘an eye for an eye’ approach.
This view is supported by many other civil society campaigners who see poverty and unemployment as the root causes of the rise in violence.
“The minds of the youths are idle and they need to be engaged into something meaningful,” said Alex Bangura, Founder and Executive Director of Campaign for Equality. The organization propagates the fair use of natural resources.
Bnagura said besides the human rights point of view, there are better approaches to solving crime than capital punishment. He said even of if it works it would just be for a temporary period.
Part of his suggestion to the solution is for politicians to stop using youths to settle scores, either over issues like land ownership or politics.
“The very prominent people in society propagating the death penalty are the ones who feed violence by drugging these youths and use them to settle scores,” he said.
Since 1998 Sierra Leone has not carried out any execution.
According to unofficial sources, there are 18 people on death row in the country.
Pro-death penalty campaigners, including an increasing number of politicians, say the moratorium is responsible for the rise in murder cases.
“Because they stopped killing them, that’s why they are killing people,” says Amadu Bah, a resident of Crab Town, a section of Lumley in the west end of Freetown.
This view is shared by many residents of Freetown, as expressed in phone-in-calls on radio and TV within the last few weeks.
The police did not respond to Politico in request for statistics on murder cases.
If the death penalty is going to be removed from the law books, parliament is one institution that is sure to have a say.
Yet, recently a leading member of the House, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, a former Presidential Adviser, was cited in a report by a local paper defending the idea that retention of the law could serve as deterrent to crime.
But Sogbanid insists that there is nothing to prove that the ‘eye-for-an-eye’ policy is the answer. The state of criminality is a cause for concern, he admitted, adding, “that notwithstanding, we still believe that the death penalty should be abolished and that it is not a solution to the current spate of violence.”
He re-echoed Bangura’s call for the authorities to look at the factors that fuel crime.
Sogbandi said they were also looking at the issue from the point of view of Sierra Leone’s commitment both nationally and internationally to respect the rights to life.
“The death penalty goes beyond killing people. We are looking at it in countries, including Sierra Leone, where governments have used it to silence political opponents. This is why we are saying it’s a bad law. A bad law should be abolished,” he stressed.
“We are hoping that government won’t relent on its promise that they are working towards abolition.”
Copyright (C) Politico 2016
