Ghana lawmakers vote to abolish death penalty

Lawmakers in Ghana voted to remove the death penalty from the country’s criminal laws this week, hailing the move as a victory for the West African nation. A majority of Ghana’s parliament voted on Tuesday to pass a bill to amend the Criminal Offenses Act, substituting the punishment — generally implemented by hanging or firing […]

Lawmakers in Ghana voted to remove the death penalty from the country’s criminal laws this week, hailing the move as a victory for the West African nation.

A majority of Ghana’s parliament voted on Tuesday to pass a bill to amend the Criminal Offenses Act, substituting the punishment — generally implemented by hanging or firing squad — for life imprisonment in crimes such as murder and piracy.

“Today the parliament of Ghana has made the country proud,” the deputy majority leader of parliament, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, told the state-owned Ghana News Agency after the bill was passed.

“The death penalty is no more a punishment in our statutes books,” he added, noting that the decision puts Ghana in line with the “international human rights position.”

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About 170 nations have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty so far, according to the United Nations, but it remains legal in over 50 countries, including the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.

Ghana is the 29th African nation to abolish the punishment, following in the footsteps of Chad, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea and Zambia, among others AP.com reports.

As of Monday, Ghana had 172 men and 6 women on death row, according to its national prisons service, among its total prison population of just over 15,000. However, no executions have been carried out in the country since 1993.