Kua keener than ever about death penalty

 THE government is seriously considering the death penalty as a deterrent for sorcery related killings, rape and other serious crimes against women, Attorney General Kerenga Kua says.

He said on Friday that his office had been swamped with petitions from around the country and abroad expressing grave concerns about the alarming increase in such crimes.

“Those horrific, brutal, gruesome killings of the type that a woman was burnt alive to her death should attract death penalty because this is a total inhumane way of taking a person’s life without any just cause and without any legal reason,” Kua said in statement.

He said that the Constitutional Law Reform Commission had been tasked to review provisions in the Criminal Code relating to crimes against women and recommend harsher penalties for offenders, including the death penalty.

He added that the people were “fed up” and were ready to accept the death penalty as a deterrent for such offences.

“The debate has been going on for a while in the public medium and I’ve been monitoring it. Most of the people are ready for it and they want it now as they are fed up of the law and order problems in this country and they want to see a more liberal use of the death penalty,” Kua said. 

“My job is simply to do what the people want me to do. I cannot shut my eyes to the people’s request. I’m not deaf, I’m listening; if they want it we will give it to them.” 

The justice minister said more than 100 written petitions have been received from civil society and human rights groups and non-government organisations.

He added that petitions have also been received from concerned groups in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, France, Brussels, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia.