Malawi hangman hired to kill 76 Zimbabweans on death row
Zimbabwe government has hired a Malawian prolific hangman who is expected to execute about 76 inmates on death row, two of them women, after a seven-year hiatus.
Since the last hangman retired in 2005, Zimbabwe has not executed any prisoners.
But state-run Herald newspaper reported that the post has been filled by a Malawian executioner.
Zimbabwe Prison Service Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi revealed that the position had been filled while showing journalists around Harare Remand Prison.
“Indeed, we now have a hangman but these people are still to be executed. In fact, no one has been executed in the past 12 years,” he said.
But the appointment of a Malawian hangman has attracted criticism from human rights groups who said the recruitment was “macabre” and appealed for the death penalty to be abolished.
Noel Kututwa, Amnesty International’s southern Africa director, said in a statement: “This macabre recruitment is disturbing and suggests that Zimbabwe does not want to join the global trend towards abolition of this cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment.”
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