Rwanda: Parliament endorse death penalty abolition draft
Sun. January 21, 2007 10:40 am.
Bonny Apunyu
(SomaliNet) The abolition of the death penalty from Rwanda's statute books was Friday endorsed by the Rwandan Chamber of Deputies.
Sources from Rwanda's Parliament said the move is a major step in paving way for the quick transfer of the 1994 Genocide suspects to Rwanda to face trial in the country.
Rwanda's Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga confirmed the development on Saturday arguing that the scrapping of death penalty would solve many legal obstacles.
"But the process is still going on. From Parliament, it will go to the Senate and then to the President to assent it," he said.
Meanwhile, the death penalty has been a big obstacle that had barred the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and other Western countries from extraditing genocide suspects to Rwanda for trial.
The ICTR, a United Nations-mandated court whose headquarters are in neighbouring Tanzania, only has powers to impose life imprisonment.
"Many countries never want to extradite criminal suspects to countries which still uphold the death penalty," Ngoga further observed.
Sources from Tanzania's Arusha town have said in the past that half of all African countries keep capital punishment and that if Rwanda finally scraps of death penalty it would be the first among the Great Lakes region countries to abolish it.
The vote by the legislators comes after a lengthy period of public consultation with various stakeholders in Rwanda on whether the capital punishment be abolished.
The voting also comes shortly after the Cabinet adopted the draft law for the abolition of the death penalty, at a decision reached at during a Cabinet meeting chaired by President Paul Kagame at Village Urugwiro on January 17. –Sunday Times.
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Rwanda to scrap death penalty
19/01/2007 12:08 - (SA)
Kigali - Rwanda's government said on Friday that it had approved plans to scrap the death penalty, in a step which could remove a major obstacle to the transfer back of home of defendants facing trial for the 1994 genocide.
Justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama said the legislation, which would have to be formally agreed on by parliament, had been voted through at a cabinet meeting this week after a lengthy period of public consultation.
Karugarama said: "The consultations that we have held since October showed us that Rwandans favour the abolition of the punishment."
The minister said the legislation would be presented to parliament "soon" for a vote, which should be a mere formality given that President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had a large majority in both houses.
600 convicts on death row
Karugarama said: "I cannot decide for parliament, but given the support for the abolition, I hope that they will vote for the law.
"If parliament adopts the law, death row convicts will have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment."
Rwanda had about 600 convicts on death row, the majority of whose sentences related to the country's 1994 genocide in which an estimated 800 000 people were slaughtered for a three month-period.
However, survivors of the genocide had objected to the outlawing of the capital punishment arguing that its presence on the statute book served as deterrent for similar crimes in the future.
The scrapping of the death penalty would remove at least one obstacle that had prevented the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and many Western countries from extraditing genocide suspects to Rwanda for trial.
The ICTR, a United Nations-mandated court that sits in neighbouring Tanzania, only has powers to impose life imprisonment.
More than three-quarters of all African countries retained capital punishment and if the proposed legislation was adopted, Rwanda would be the first country in Africa's volatile Great Lakes region to abolish it.
Oh, Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins." - Old Indian Prayer My dad told me!! |
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