Gambia to link executions to crime rate

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BANJUL, Gambia, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's conditional moratorium on executions leaves at least 38 death row prisoners at risk, Amnesty International said.

Jammeh's Sept. 14 announcement of a temporary halt to capital punishment, dependent on whether the crime rate decreases or increases in response, was called "not good enough" by Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, Gambia researcher of the London-based human rights group.

"Making the moratorium permanent, with a view to abolishing the death penalty," is required, she said.

But the statement from the president's office said: "What happens next will be dictated by either declining violent crime, in which case the moratorium will be indefinite, or an increase in violent crime, in which case the moratorium will be lifted automatically."

Until last month, when Jammeh announced "all death sentences would be carried out to the letter by mid-September," Gambia had no executions since 1985. The government executed nine people on Aug. 23, all without prior notification to the prisoners, their families or their lawyers, Amnesty International said.