“Hangings cannot put albino killings to an end. The death penalty is not reliable enough as a solution. We need to think of better and more definitive ways out”
“Even after the first group of people suspected of murdering albinos was sentenced to death by hanging, there was no improvement in the situation. There was no noticeable change in people’s behaviour. Instead, more and more albinos were murdered in Geita and several other parts of the Lake Victoria zone”
`Battle` Over Death Penalty Once More
Story courtesy of The Guardian newspaper Tanzania
Physical protection is a much better way of ensuring the safety of albinos than sentencing to death people behind their killings, human rights activists have insisted.
Harold Sungusia, public engagement coordinator with the Dar es Salaam-based Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), said in an interview with this paper on Tuesday that there was no country where capital punishment had served as an effective enough deterrent to homicide.
He was speaking in the recent sentencing to death by the High Court of several people found guilty of killing albinos.
“Even after the first group of people suspected of murdering albinos was sentenced to death by hanging, there was no improvement in the situation. There was no noticeable change in people’s behaviour. Instead, more and more albinos were murdered in Geita and several other parts of the Lake Victoria zone,” he said.
He added: “That was enough proof that the death penalty is not a lasting solution and that it does not scare anyone into treating albinos as normal humans.”
Sungusia, a lawyer, said capital punishment fell short on three counts as a deterrent – “changing offenders into good law-abiding people, ensuring that one does not relapse into crime, and ensuring that convicts rejoin their communities rehabilitated on completion of their punishment.
He noted that some people were sentenced to death for crimes they had not committed and that it was “simply not practicable” for people hanged after being convicted to enjoy their rights should evidence absolving them be made available after they are hanged.
“Hangings cannot put albino killings to an end. The death penalty is not reliable enough as a solution. We need to think of better and more definitive ways out,” he added.
But Sungusia stated that Tanzanian laws gave the courts the power to sentence albino killers and all other murderers to death.
“Even if the President decides to sign warrants effectively sanctioning the hanging of murder convicts, he would be perfectly right because that is provided for by our laws,” he pointed out.
He elaborated: “The problem lies in the laws we have. Some are so hopelessly outdated and therefore so bad that they call for urgent amendment or scrapping,” he said, adding that there was also “an urgent need to shift from criminology to victimology in order to restore justice in the society”.
LHRC director Francis Kiwanga similarly noted that the nation has failed to arrest the killings of albinos and that the death penalty has not been implemented in Tanzania in the last 16 or so years.
“The failure to actually hang murder convicts to death for this long means that there is no need to continue embracing the death sentence. Rather, we should concentrate on ways of controlling the killings of albinos,” he added.
But law professor Abdallah Safari trashed suggestions that the death penalty be abolished, saying those recommending as much were uncritical advocates of western philosophies.
“There is no way I can buy those suggestions. Rising numbers of countries I know are very seriously contemplating reinstating capital punishment. How strange it is that there are Tanzanians bent on doing the opposite!” he said.
Prof Safari said abolishing capital punishment would be going against religious and most other social norms “because all the holy books support the death penalty”.
However, he explained that sentence ought to be executed “only when there was no alternative way of getting a solution to the problem on the strength of which the sentence was passed”.
He insisted that in extreme cases like the killings of innocent albinos, the death penalty was easily the most logical way of dealing with the problem.
Another legal expert, Dr Edmund Sengondo Mvungi, was of the view that the question of whether to retain the death penalty was “a long-standing issue as far as the Holy Books and schools of law are concerned”.
He too said he did not view capital punishment as an effective enough deterrent in cases involving murder, adding: “Albino killings have their roots in traditional beliefs, and this makes the crime extremely difficult to kick out of society. It is like planning to end trading in narcotics,” he said.
He elaborated: “I must state categorically that it is just not right to kill an albino or anyone else because doing so deprives the victims of their basic right to life. But it would be equally not right to sentence murder convicts to death because that too would mean denying them their basic right to life.”
Dr Mvungi stressed that it would be neither right nor proper to use “the principle of negation in seeking solutions to problems”, and called on society “to appreciate the fact that albinos need and deserve as much love, protection and feeling of belonging from their respective communities as everyone else”.
“These people are a minority, they are desperate and they lack protection. Therefore they badly need social integration and recognition,” he said.
The High Court of Tanzania, sitting in Shinyanga Region specifically to preside over cases involving albino killings, delivered its second judgment on Monday by convicting four accused persons and sentencing them to death by hanging.
Judge Gadi Mjemas sentenced Mboje Mawe, Chenyenye Kishiwa, Sayi Gamaya and Sayi Mafizi, all residents of Nkindwabiye village in Bariadi District, Shinyanga Region.
They were charged with having conspired and killed Lyaku Wille (50) of Nkindwabiye village between November and December last year.
In its first ruling in September this year, the court similarly convicted and sentenced three accused persons. Judge Gabriel Rwakibalila delivered the judgment, saying the court was satisfied that the evidence presented by the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt the involvement of the three convicts in the killings.
He said the trio conspired and killed schoolboy Matatizo Dunia (13), an albino, on December 1 last year at Bunyihuna village in Shinyanga Region’s Bukombe District.
Those found guilty and are now on death row are Masumbuko Madata (32) of Itunga Village, Emmanuel Masangwa (28) of Bunyihuna Village and Charles Kalamuji alias Charles Masangwa (42) of Nanda Village, all in Bukombe District. The court ruled that they committed the crime as per Section 16 of Criminal Act No. 196, as amended in 2002.
The pronouncement of the first death sentence against albino killers (in Shinyanga in September last year) was greeted with jubilation among people who thronged the High Court set up in the area specifically for the purpose.
However, most lawyers interviewed said implementation of the death sentence was not as easy as people thought because it would have to be preceded by a fairly long process lasting between three to four years.
It was explained that before those on death row were hanged to death, a panel of judges would have to deliberate on the ruling. They would then submit a report to a special jury that would, in turn, advise the President on whether to assent to the court’s ruling that the convicts be hanged to death.
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