Death Penalty Alive and Well in Gambia
Capital punishment was abolished in 1981, but President Jammeh reinstated it in 1995 as punishment for murder and treason and was recently extended to punish drug trafficking offences.
Death penalty is a way of punishing a person by putting him to death. For ages, human societies used the death penalty to combat crimes.
Criminals are executed-shot, hang, decapitated or stoned to death by 'constituted authorities'. But in recent years, there has been a growing trend against the use of capital punishment. Many countries are beginning to realize the flawed nature of using death to punish 'criminals'. Many countries are abandoning and abolishing capital punishment.
Besides Lang Tombong Tamba and his seven co-accused, the country's death row holds, among others, Sulayman Bah, convicted of killing his housemate in a dispute over money, and Tabara Samba, a woman who convicted of killing her husband by pouring boiling oil over her. February 14, 2011: Sheriff Abba Hydara, 71, from Bakallar Village in the Upper Niumi District of The Gambia's North Bank Region was sentenced to death by Justice Joseph Enwa Ikpala of the Special Criminal Court (SCC) in Banjul for murdering his wife, Basara Hydara, on September 6, 2010. He allegedly shot her. The convict was also alleged to have unlawfully attempted to cause the death of his son, Marabel Hydara by shooting him with a gun on the said date and place.
Yet when it abolished the death penalty in 1981, the West African country was among the first African governments to do so. President Jammeh reinstated the death penalty in 1995 as punishment for murder and treason.
Two dozen people have been sentenced to death in Gambia since then. None have been executed in that time, but neither has anyone been pardoned or had their sentences reduced.
Since Gambian independence in 1965, a death sentence has been carried out only once, when Mustapha Danso was executed for killing the commander of the country's army, Ekou Mahoney, during a failed coup in 1981.
Baboucarr Ceesay, editor of The Daily News newspaper, says the death penalty has not contributed to reducing the murder rate.
"In fact before 1995, we rarely heard of someone being murdered," he says, "but it has hit the headlines frequently over the past few years."
Regarding treason, Ceesay cannot recall a coup attempt during the period when capital punishment was abolished. Since 1995, however, the Gambia has experienced at least four coup attempts since its re-institution.
In October, capital punishment was extended further to punish drug trafficking offences.
Musa Touray, a retired civil servant, says applying the death penalty to drug offences will do little to reduce the spiraling rate of drug trafficking.
"The death penalty is not necessary," he says, "It is too heavy a penalty. What the government should do is to strengthen its surveillance mechanisms."
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has noted that West Africa has increasingly become a transit point for drugs, with traffickers taking advantage of poverty and poor surveillance to move drugs from South America to Europe.
In June, a record two-tonne stash of cocaine was found in the Gambia, with an estimated street value in Europe of just under a $1billion according to newspaper reports.
The Gambia's amended act states that anyone caught with over 250 grammes of cocaine faces the death penalty if convicted. Those convicted of human trafficking will also face a death sentence.
"The menace of drug trafficking and the activities of major drug lords have started to rear their ugly heads in this jurisdiction in recent times," Attorney General and Justice Minister Edward Anthony Gomez told lawmakers.
"Therefore this bill seeks to nip the negative developments in the bud by providing sentences which will serve as deterent to anyone wishing to use this country either as a transit or destination point for hard drugs."
The bill also covers human trafficking, said Gomez. "Both the strategic location of The Gambia as a gateway to the Western world as well as our liberal immigration policy have attracted the attention of unscrupulous persons in using the country as a transit route for trafficking in persons."
As at today, 139 states have abolished the death penalty in law or practice and 72 have ratified the Second Optional Protocol to International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which provides for the total abolition of the death penalty. Unfortunately Gambia is not one of them. Gambia has yet to abolish the death penalty. According to Amnesty International, Gambia is a de-facto abolitionist state. The last execution was carried out in 1981. Thirteen death sentences have been passed in since the beginning of the year. In July, eight men accused of procuring arms, equipment and mercenaries to stage a coup against President Yahya Jammeh's government were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death in a trial.
Anna Jefferys/IRIN
The bill also covers human trafficking (file photo).
The theme of this year's 'World Day Against the Death Penalty' is "The Death Penalty casts a Shadow on Democracy". Indeed, capital punishment casts a long shadow on the democracy of any country. The observance of the death penalty is incompatible with democratic norms. The reasons for the abolition of the death penalty are so clear and compelling and should be given serious considerations by the government of the Gambia, and they are as follows:
1. No state should have the power to take a citizen's life.
2. It is irrevocable: no justice system is safe from judicial error and innocent people are likely to be sentenced to death.
3. It is inefficient: it has never been shown that the death penalty deters crimes more effectively than other punishments.
4. It is unfair: the death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, the mentally ill, those from racial and ethnic minorities, and in some places in the world because of discrimination, because of sexual orientation or religion.
5. It does not offer justice to murder victims' families: the effects of murder cannot be erased by more killing, and the death system prolongs the suffering of victims' families.
6. It creates more victims: the death penalty inflicts pain on the families of those on death row.
7. It is inhumane, cruel and degrading: the dreadful conditions on death row inflict extreme psychological suffering and execution is a physical and mental assault.
8. It is applied overwhelmingly in violation of international standards: it breaches the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to life and that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It is also in contradiction with the international trend towards abolition recognized by two votes at the United Nations General Assembly calling for the establishment of a universal moratorium on the use of the death penalty (resolutions 62/149 and 63/168 adopted on 18 December 2007 and 2008)
9. It does not keep society safe.
10. It denies any possibility of rehabilitation to the criminal.
I must underscore the fact that we all can live without the death penalty. Many countries are already doing so. We can fight and prevent crimes in our societies without capital punishment. We can adequately punish those who commit murder, armed robbery and other heinous offences without putting them to death. The campaign to end the death penalty is not just a campaign to save lives; it is a campaign for justice, for human rights and dignity. The death penalty is an out dated form of punishment and should not be associated with the legal system in any civilized and democratic nation in this 21st century. The justice system in the Gambia is better of without it. Humanity is better of without capital punishment. Hence I urge President Yahya Jammeh to get Gambia to join other nations by abolishing the death penalty.
Leo Igwe is the director of the International Humanists and Ethical Union in West Africa
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