130 prisoners walk to freedom from death row in Kafantayeni project
Over 130 prisoners have walked to freedom after they were sentenced to hang since 2007, thanks to Kafantayeni cases resentencing project.
Peter Chisi, the civil and political director at Malawi Human Rights Commission said the project is going on well.
The project started in 2007 after a prisoner who was sentenced to death, challenged the verdict and asked for a retrial to which he was succesful.
The project is being undertaken by the Malawi Human Rights Commission with funding from Tiritonse Fund.
Chisi said since the project started, 50 prisoners were released immediately, 62 were released immediately as well after it was discovered they overstayed in the jails and 26 were released after retrials.
He said another meeting was held on Tuesday with High Court officials on the next phase of the retrials which might see another set of prisoners being released.
Chisi said six cases are pending in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
He said the project wants a speedy trial of murder cases and is proposing that the murder cases be tried before professional magistrates.
Chisi said the High Court judges would just be coming in to hand down sentences.
Defending murderers? A useless project. It looks simple if someone they killed is not your relation. Let them kill your child
I like his smile. Welcome back to the world and forget about the past.
A goof development
Aaaww!!! The hugging part is so touching. Thanks to this initiative, they’re so many innocent people rotting in jail because of injustices please help them. 1993, he was 16, he could’ve had a great future but everything was ruined