Kenya's new government wants to abolish the death penalty...

Kenya's new government wants to abolish the death penalty within the next six months, Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi said. More than 1,000 Kenyans who have been sentenced to death are locked up in Kenya's notoriously overcrowded maximum security prisons, but the penalty ? by hanging ? has not been carried out since 1984. "We think the fundamental human right to life should be respected, and no human being should have the authority to take the life of another," Murungi told The Associated Press. "Capital punishment is a barbaric punishment." Wambui Kimathi of the Kenya Human Rights Commission said as of September 2002 there were 1,270 Kenyans in prison who had been sentenced to death. "It should be abolished. We have been saying that no one should have the right to take someone else's life," she said. Murungi was appointed after President Mwai Kibaki led an alliance of opposition parties to a historic December 27, 2002 election victory that ended the 39-year rule of the Kenya African National Union party, or KANU. That party had governed Kenya since independence from Britain in 1963. During his time in the opposition, Murungi campaigned against the death penalty. He presented a bill in parliament to end the death penalty in October 1999, but it was defeated. Anyone convicted of committing murder or "armed robbery with violence" can be sentenced to death in Kenya. That has meant that a judge could sentence a chicken thief to death if he used violence in committing the theft. There are no jury trials in Kenya. A commission to review Kenya's 1963 constitution was appointed in October 2000 to draft a new charter for the East African nation. A provision abolishing the death penalty is in the document. Murungi said capital punishment had neither been abolished nor implemented by the previous government because ministers were divided. That government "was not able to take a final decision on this issue although they also felt it was morally not right," he said. "They were not able to pick up the courage to abolish it." But he also acknowledged that in Kenya, where crime has spiked in recent years, some Kenyans still support the death penalty. Lynchings of criminals have increased as Kenyans have become increasingly frustrated with the failure of police and the judiciary to deal with crime. "Because of the bad robberies and high rate of murder, some Kenyans support the death penalty. But I think it's misinformation not based on any scientific evidence that it (the death penalty) acts as a deterrent," he said.