By Alpha Daramy Sesay and Aminata Phidelia Allie
Member of Parliament and publicity secretary of the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party has dismissed government’s position to have repealed the death penalty as “deceitful” and “total rubbish”.
Hon. Tamba Sam was reacting to pronouncements made by the All People's Congress government spokesman and minister of communication, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, when he told Politico that government needs to be “serious and sincere” about statements it makes.
The government, he said, should provide the people with concrete evidence that shows they were really serious about removing the death penalty.
“These are procedural steps which must go through parliament and the government has not done that,” he lamented.
Minister Kargbo had told newsmen at the usual Thursday press conference in Freetown that his government was only a step away from completely removing the death penalty in the country’s law books, adding that as a responsible government they had removed all prisoners on death-row.
Acting Director General, Amnesty International, Solomon Sogbandi, said the government had placed a “moratorium”, meaning that the death penalty was not applicable practically, but in principle it was still found in our
statute books.
He observed that the entrenched clause under the death penalty in the 1991 Constitution clearly states that a referendum must be conducted in order to abolish capita punishment. That, according to him, was “the only step away.”
