UGANDA: ‘MUSEVENI WILL NOT SIGN MORE DEATH WARRANTS’

Ugandan prisons chief Dr. Johnson Byabashaijja said President Yoweri Museveni promised not to sign more death warrants. "We have had a number of executions since the colonial times and the last one was in 2001. The President vowed never to sign any more death warrants." Addressing a meeting at the Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala, Byabasaijja said the last group of 23 people whom Museveni sent to the gallows in 2001, included UPC’s diehard Musa Ssebirumbi. The meeting was organised by the Uganda Human Rights Commission to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN declaration on human rights. Byabashaijja said the Uganda Prisons Service was against the death sentence. "A pity the President and Parliament are against the quashing of the death penalty. How can we be practising such archaic laws in the 21st Century?" "How sure are we that all those on death row are guilty?" he asked.