SIERRA LEONE. AMNESTY MOBILIZES SUPPORT AGAINST DEATH PENALTY

Amnesty International was mobilizing support to pressure the government of Sierra Leone to abolish the death penalty. Brima Sheriff, Acting Section Director Amnesty International (AI)-Sierra Leone Section made the disclosure to journalists at a press briefing.
Sheriff maintained that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that the government must eradicate the death penalty from the country's law books and that the Special Court trying those that bore the 'greatest responsibility' during the rebel war did not sanction the death penalty. He argued that the death penalty couldn't in any way solve the country's protracted problems and Sierra Leone had witnessed over seven coups with many people executed during the process. "They were tried and later executed," he said and noted that even the United States that is notorious for the death penalty, fourteen states have abolished it.