Death row cells violate rights

2003-03-30 12:34

Lusaka - More than 300 prisoners facing the death penalty in Zambia are being kept in overcrowded cells, where conditions violate basic human rights, a top prison official said on Sunday.

Jethro Mumbuwa, the country's commissioner of prisons, said the death row inmates were all being kept at Zambia's only maximum security prison in congested cells, in contravention of the law.

"We are supposed to keep each death row prisoner in one cell. But now we keep 10 prisoners in each cell meant for one prisoner," Mumbuwa said.

"The way we are keeping the prisoners is against human rights," he added.

He appealed to President Levy Mwanawasa's government to speed up the contruction of new maximum security jail so the prison authorities could decongest the cells.

The number of convicts on death row in Zambia keeps growing because the president, who has the ultimate say over a prisoner's life, has not signed the documents for their execution.

The last executions took place in 1997, when former president Frederick Chiluba authorised the hanging of eight prisoners. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA