Articles & News

May 21, 2008

Zambian death row inmates plead for deliverance

By Newton Sibanda, Lusaka

The common prayer of those on Zambia's jam-packed death row is for divine intervention to end their hell on earth and let the waiting hangman carry out his job speedily, according to a recently released inmate.

"It is so painful to be in suspense, we would pray to be hanged," Churchill Malama, 33, recounted to IPS. Malama spent three years on death row in the Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison, located in the central town of Kabwe. His death sentence for murder was overturned by the Supreme Court last March.

The "torment and trauma" of life on death row were relieved only by worship and the exchange of words between inmates. "There are no activities there to relax your mind," Malama said.

He described as "painful and degrading" the living conditions for the condemned, crammed into the 48 cells on death row: "Each cell -- measuring just two-and-a-half metres by two metres -- is supposed to have just one or two inmates, but there were five or six of us with two mattresses to share."

There was no sanitation or ventilation. "We improvised chambers (toilets) by cutting up five or two-and-a-half litre plastic containers for human waste. It was traumatic," Malama said.

During the day, death row inmates -- totalling 306 at the time of his release -- were let out of their cells. But the space where they could circulate was only three metres wide and 30 metres long, he said.

Malama recalled the traumatic day, Feb 10, 2005, when he was condemned to death by the High Court in the capital, Lusaka, after being held for four years as a remand prisoner. He had been accused of murder and robbery after being attacked by an armed gang while guarding a city electricity sub-station with six colleagues from the Zambia National Service, a military wing that carries out civilian projects. Two officers died in the attack.

"I reported the case to the police. But the police turned against me. The judge convicting me called me a conspirator, but I was innocent. I never expected that pronouncement, 'You are sentenced to hang until pronounced dead.' I felt the world had closed in on me. I blacked out."

From that moment on the formerly friendly prison staff treated him as a dangerous criminal.

Malama was loaded onto a truck with five other inmates condemned that day and taken at high speed to Kabwe. "Instead of the normal two hours to reach Kabwe, the truck took just over an hour," he recalled.

Twice in the years afterwards he attended Supreme Court appeal hearings. But his case was adjourned each time. On the third occasion, this year, the court set him free.

"I couldn't hold back my tears. I couldn't believe I was out of hell," Malama said. "When I arrived home there was disbelief. It was like I had been resurrected. The whole family, including my father and my mother, were in tears."

Malama now intends to join the country's anti-death penalty campaign.

Campaigners interviewed by IPS expressed scepticism that Zambia would soon abolish the death penalty.

The majority of the petitioners reporting to the recent Mung'omba Constitutional Review Commission were in favour of retaining the death penalty in the country's new constitution, Kelvin Hang'andu, a prominent lawyer, told IPS.

"I can confidently say that the new constitution will have the death penalty as a legal form of punishment," he said.

Leonard Kalinde, also a prominent lawyer and anti-death penalty activist, said this situation reflected on those lobbying for capital punishment to be banned: "As campaigners, we have not done enough to communicate the message. We need more education on the death penalty. As a civilised nation, we should have abolished the death penalty and should now be focusing on (penal) reform."

Bishop Enocent Silwamba, executive director of the Prison Fellowship of Zambia, strongly criticised Zambia's failure to do away with the death penalty. "With our imperfect criminal justice system, not everyone sentenced to death has committed a crime," he told IPS.

A visiting delegation from the African Union's Commission on Human and People's Rights recently called on Zambia to abolish capital punishment; however, commissioner Pansy Tlakula also noted, Apr 18, that the delegation was encouraged by the fact that the country had not executed any prisoners in recent years (the most recent execution took place in 1997).

In response, Mike Mulongoti, minister for information and broadcasting, said it was the National Constitutional Conference that would finally decide the matter.

Since Zambia's independence in 1964, 53 people are believed to have been executed by hanging.

In 2004, President Levy Mwanawasa promised not to sign any death warrants while in office; he was re-elected last year for another six-year term.