Following the executions of nine death row prisoners, President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia has suspended any further executions of death row inmates. In a statement on 15 September, Jammeh said he was responding to ‘numerous appeals’ from governmental and human rights organisations, including the African and European Unions, the Commonwealth and Amnesty International.
The executions, which were confirmed by the government on 27 August and included one woman and two Senegalese nationals, were the first in The Gambia in 27 years. It is unknown for what crimes they were executed, although three of the prisoners were believed to have been sentenced for treason. Jammeh had vowed in August to clear death row by mid-September, and declared in his recent statement that the suspension of executions could be temporary.
According to Reuters, the president’s statement said, ‘What happens next will be dictated either by a declining violent crime rate, in which case the moratorium would be indefinite, or an increase in violent crime rate, in which case the moratorium will be lifted automatically.’ Another 37 inmates remain on death row.
Senegal formally protested to The Gambia about the execution of two of its citizens and demanded that the life of a third Senegalese death-row prisoner be spared. A Gambian opposition political group, the National Transitional Council of The Gambia, based in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, told the BBC that they intended to create a government in exile with an aim to see the end of Jammeh’s ‘dictatorship’.
Jammeh’s human rights record has often been criticised by international organisations, with particular concerns over press freedom. The death penalty in The Gambia was abolished under former president, Dawda Jawara, but was reinstated in 1995 shortly after Jammeh seized power in a military coup.
