President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe has ordered a presidential pardon to save the lives of 16 inmates who were on death row, Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services said
Prisons and Correctional Services spokesperson Elizabeth Banda said that the 16 benefitted from an amnesty in which Mnangagwa pardoned more than 3,000 prisoners in a bid to decongest prisons.
Speaking to The Herald newspaper at the Harare Central Prison where 173 prisoners were being released, Banda said inmates who had been on death row for over 10 years had their sentences reduced to life.
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As of January, there were 99 death row inmates in Zimbabwe.
The country last carried out an execution in 2005 and the last hangman, who retired in 2006, has not yet been replaced.
Mnangagwa, who was once sentenced to hang during the struggle for the country’s independence, has always expressed his opposition to the death penalty.
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