Scrap death penalty - Mandela

2003-01-14 10:39

Johannesburg - Nelson Mandela called on the United States on Monday to follow the example of Illinois Governor George Ryan and abandon the death penalty.

"The death sentence is a barbaric act," Mandela said in comments relayed through a spokesperson in Mozambique, the home of his wife Graca Machel.

"I hope the whole of the United States will follow Governor Ryan's example in commuting the death sentence," said the former South African president.

Before announcing his unprecedented decision on Saturday to commute the death sentences of over 150 men and women in Illinois, Ryan said he had discussed the issue with Mandela by phone.

Mandela's compatriot, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote to Ryan recommending the anti-death penalty stance of South Africa's constitution, drawn up to end decades of racist apartheid rule.

A spokesperson for Tutu welcomed Ryan's decision.

"This is fantastic news," she said on Sunday. "His feeling would be that the death penalty is vengeance, it's not justice."

Ryan, the outgoing Republican state governor, declared the execution system to be "broken" after an examination of the state's capital punishment system ordered nearly three years ago when investigations found 13 prisoners on death row were innocent.

His decision to commute the death sentences of everybody on death row in the state prompted calls from human rights groups and others opposed to the death penalty to follow suit.

- Reuters