UGANDA: REPLACE DEATH PENALTY, SAYS AMERICAN JUDGE

a visiting American judge wants Ugandan judges to substitute the death penalty with lighter sentences for convicted capital offenders. Mr Abdulai O. Conteh, the Chief Justice of Belize, a Caribbean State, said Uganda should be part of the growing world trend against the death penalty. "It is not that every murderer found guilty by the courts deserves death," he said. Justice Conteh commended the Constitutional Court decision that relaxed the sentencing procedure of capital offenders in Uganda, thereby outlawing provisions of the law that make the death penalty mandatory in certain offences. He said instead of sentencing inmates to suffer death, the courts could prefer other jail terms and life imprisonment, "depending on the circumstances under which the offence was committed and the circumstances of the convict." Uganda has over 500 prisoners on death row in the Luzira and Kirinya Prison.