Ghana urged to remove death penalty from laws

Mr Robert Akoto Amoafo, the Country Director of Amnesty International Ghana has disclosed that as at the end of 2017, there were about 160 prisoners on death row.

He said they comprised 154 men and six women who remained locked up under death sentence at Nsawam prison complex.

Mr Amoafo who recently mentioned this during this year’s Day Against Death Penalty in Accra said although Ghana had not carried out a single execution since 1993, the law allowing it, was still preserved in Ghana’s statute books, and therefore, called for its total removal.

Mr Akoto Amoafo mentioned overcrowding, poor nutrition, inadequate healthcare and isolation of male inmates as some of the sub-standard conditions in which inmates on death row lived in, that needed immediate intervention.

“On the world day against the death penalty 2018, Amnesty said prisoners on death row must be treated with humanely and dignity and held in conditions that meet international human rights law and standards.

“We believe that it is time for Ghana to abolish the death penalty as many West African countries have done, he stated, and appealed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo to give prisoners on death row a special Christmas gift by publicly committing to the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes and rather convert all death sentences to terms of imprisonment.

The organisation appealed to the President to order the review of all cases of death row prisoners to identify potential miscarriages of Justice and provide the necessary support to mandated agencies to ensure that all death row prisoners were treated in accordance with the UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners.

He called for the implementation of the Nelson Mandela Rules that ensured that prisoners got adequate medical care, including access to recreational and educational facilities.

The world day against death penalty is celebrated on October 10 annually. The 2018 day focused on the substandard conditions of prisoners on death row.

Source: GNA