137 still on death row

A total of 137 people, comprising 134 males and three females, are currently on the country’s death row awaiting execution.

Out of the number, seven are foreign nationals and 130 are Ghanaians. These were contained in the amnesty international’s 2015 global death penalty report released in Accra yesterday.

The report noted that no executions were carried out in Ghana last year, though 18 death sentences were imposed.

The President, John Dramani Mahama last year commuted 14 death sentences to life imprisonment last year.

‘The report noted that the 18 death sentences imposed last year, constituted an increase of 100 per cent death sentences imposed in Ghana during the period, compared to the 2014 figure of nine death sentences,’ the report said.

It listed Ghana as one of the countries in which amnesty international recorded a worrying increase in the number of death sentences imposed last year.

Mr. Lawrence Amesu, director of amnesty international, Ghana section, therefore, called on the government, to as a matter of urgency, ratify the second optional protocol to the international covenant on civil and political rights as a step towards the total abolition of the death penalty.

He said government’s plans to put to a referendum, recommendations of the constitutional review commission (CRC) requiring changes to the constitution including the removal of the death penalty, were not implemented last year, due to a court case brought to stall the process.

‘We are happy that the supreme court of Ghana has now cleared the road for the constitutional review implementation committee to continue its work towards the review of the 1992 constitution. We hope that when the issue is brought to the public to decide, the people will make a right choice of rejecting the death penalty,’ he added.

Mr. Amesu urged Ghana to abolish the death penalty for all crimes and become the 103rd abolitionist in the world.