Botswana carries out another execution

Amnesty International has criticised Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi for death penalty carried out in Botswana.

RUSTENBURG, June 11 (ANA) – Botswana carried yet another execution on Friday, despite recent criticism from rights groups over the practice.

Thirty-four-year-old Phemelo Botegelang from Motshotha in the Lesenepole locality was executed at the Gaborone Central Prison, Senior Superintendent Oagile Kojane of the Botswana Prison Service said in a statement.

The Francistown High Court imposed a death sentence on Botegelang last July after he was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Annah Simon and his child Atang Simon in May 2011.

Botegelang appealed the judgment but the country’s court of appeal dismissed his application on February 10.

Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s government has come under sharp criticism from Amnesty International over its continued use of the death penalty.

In February, the southern African country executed Wedu Mosalagae and Kutlo Setima, after they were both sentenced to death in 2019 for murder.

At the time, Amnesty Internaional’s director for East and southern Africa Deprose Muchena said the continued use of the death penalty in Botswana and the sharp rise in executions under Masisi was a chilling reminder of the contempt with which authorities viewed the right to life.

“Botswana, under President Masisi, is continuing to go against the regional trend by increasing its executions of people on a continent where many countries have either abolished the death penalty or are no longer executing people,“ Muchena said.

“The death penalty is cruel and inhuman, and there is no credible evidence that it has a greater deterrent effect on crime than imprisonment.“

According to the rights group, Botswana is the only southern African country that continues to carry out executions.

In April, the Supreme Court of Appeal in Malawi ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional and ordered the re-sentencing of all convicts facing execution.

A report by Amnesty International on the global use of the death penalty in 2019 showed that that four countries in the sub-Saharan Africa – Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – carried out executions in their territories despite a five percent reduction in such actions around the world.

– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa