Zimbabwe officially abolished the death penalty Tuesday, December 31, after President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed into law an act that will commute to jail time the sentences of prisoners on death row. At least 59 people were known to be under a death sentence in Zimbabwe at the end of 2023, Amnesty International said in a statement. The new law spares them.
There has been a moratorium on executions in the southern African country since 2005 although courts have continued to hand down the death sentence for crimes including murder, treason and terrorism.
The Death Penalty Abolition Act, published in Government Gazette Tuesday, says courts can no longer deliver a sentence of capital punishment for any offense and any existing death sentences would need to be commuted to jail time. However, one provision says the suspension of the death penalty may be lifted during a state of emergency.
Amnesty International described the law as "a beacon of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region." Other African countries such as Kenya, Liberia and Ghana have recently taken "positive steps" towards abolishing the death penalty but are yet to put it into law, according to the human rights group, which campaigns against the death penalty.
Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe's leader since 2017, has publicly spoken of his opposition to capital punishment. He has cited his experience of being sentenced to death – later changed to 10 years in prison – for blowing up a train during the war of independence from white minority rule. He also has used presidential amnesties to commute death sentences to life in prison.
According to Amnesty International, about three-quarters of countries in the world use capital punishment. It says 24 African countries have fully abolished the death penalty, among 113 countries globally. Amnesty International said it recorded 1,153 known executions globally in 2023, up from 883 the previous year, although countries that carried out executions declined from 20 to 16.
Due to a veil of secrecy, the figures do not include those in North Korea, Vietnam and China, which the rights group has described as the "world's lead executioner." Iran and Saudi Arabia accounted for almost 90% of all executions recorded by Amnesty in 2023, followed by Somalia and the US.