Zimbabwe’s Senate has approved a bill to abolish the death penalty in the country.
The southern African country has used hanging as its method of execution. As of today, 60 prisoners are on death row in the country. But no one has been executed since 2005.
This is due, among other things, to the fact that no one has wanted to take on the job of executioner, and that President Emmerson Mnangagwa has commuted several death sentences to prison terms.
The law will now be signed by the president – who himself has been sentenced to death before. That happened in the 1960s during the War of Independence. His sentence was later commuted to ten years in prison.
According to Amnesty International, three-quarters of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty. They are urging the President of Zimbabwe to sign the law as soon as possible.