Human rights lawyer calls for death sentence to be expunged

Sosu was speaking after a 22-year old trader was handed a death sentence by a Tamale High Court in the Northern Region. The culprit Zeila Sulemana stabbed the girlfriend of his ex-boyfriend in the chest and abdomen to death after a heated argument over the Zeila’s ex boyfriend.

Amnesty International described the sentence handed to her as pointless as the death sentence does not deter crime. Director of Amnesty International Ghana Lawrence Amesu who also called for the removal of the death sentence from the statutory books of the country argued that “[The] death sentence is not an answer to a crime. It is unfortunate it is still in our constitution and the judges will continue ruling in such directions…a death sentence doesn’t deter crime, otherwise crime would have been stopped in countries that practice it”.

Speaking to pulse.com.gh Sosu explained that even though the basis for the death sentence was for a culprit to receive equal measure of punishment of what he meted out to a victim, many culprits after they have been executed are found innocent of the said crime.

“That is the genesis for the death sentence, that tooth for tooth, eye for eye, those who live by the sword must die by the sword. But research over the years has shown that there are many people who have been executed and later on pieces of evidence are found to show that they did not commit those offences.

"I’ve met people who have served the full sentence, some 50 year jail term just for them to come out and evidence is showing they are not the people who committed those offences. So we cannot rule out the fact that the possibility of us convicting somebody and sentencing that person on offences he never committed or knew nothing about are also there, once those possibilities are there it will be better to tread on the side of caution”.

He also mentioned that even though nobody has been executed in Ghana since 1993 it is important “that those punishments are taken out of our statutory books to also show that we have equal respect for human rights and human dignity”. He also argued that there are times fresh evidence is found only after the culprit has been executed. He therefore questioned that “what then do you do? There is no more remedy”.

Sosu said to expunge the death sentence from the statutes of the land “it would require a constitutional amendment, which will affect all statutes that push forward this agenda”.

But until that is done, he recommended that culprits who formerly deserved a death sentence should rather be handed a number of years to serve a jail term or at worse a life sentence.

“In Ghana once you are convicted and sentenced to death you are usually put in the condemn cell and then abandoned there. So I think it will be right and consistent with international practices for us to take that [death sentence] out of our statutory books and have life imprisonment or a number of years for handed for such high crimes,” he said.