By Lamin Njie
A new report by the Gambia government has said that The Gambia currently has 23 prisoners on death row.
“Currently, there are twenty-three (23) prisoners sentenced to death, out of which twenty-one (21) were convicted for murder; one (1) for unlawfully causing death and one (1) for manslaughter,” said The Gambia’s report on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which was presented by the minister of justice Abubacarr Tambadou to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights at its 64th session in Egypt on Thursday.
The report added: “It is worth noting that despite the fact that the death penalty remains on the statute books since 1995, the only executions took place in 2012 when nine death row prisoners were executed.
“Since then, the moratorium which existed prior to 2012 has been restored. In 2017, the President announced a moratorium and signed the second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has been signed and ratified.”
