Nigeria must declare a moratorium on executions because its criminal justice system is so flawed that it is sentencing people to death who may be innocent, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
In a 78-page report entitled "Waiting for the Hangman," the rights group listed abuses including death penalty convictions based on confessions extracted under torture, appeals lasting more than 20 years and the sentencing to death of children.
"It is truly horrifying to think of how many innocent people may have been executed and may still be executed," said Aster Van Kregten, Amnesty International's Nigeria researcher.
"The judicial system is riddled with flaws that can have devastating consequences. For those accused of capital crimes, the effects are obviously deadly and irreversible."
Amnesty said that the Nigerian government had not officially reported any executions since 2002 but that at least seven convicts had been executed in secrecy in 2006.
It quoted a fellow death row convict and a religious minister as witnesses to one of those executions and said another was broadcast on local radio.
More than 720 men and 11 women are on death row in Nigeria and one of them has been under sentence of death for 24 years. More than 40 offenders were sentenced while under the age of 18, against international law, Amnesty said.
The group said a moratorium on executions should be the first step toward abolishing the death penalty.
The issue of capital punishment raises heated debate in Nigeria, where armed robbery is a major problem in cities such as Lagos and is a crime punishable by death.
There is considerable public support in some areas for extra-judicial killings by police officers, who are often under-equipped and regularly killed in the line of duty.
MENTAL DISORDERS
Amnesty said the pressure on the police to convict armed robbers and other criminals meant corners were often cut, with bystanders arbitrarily arrested at a crime scene and only those who paid a bribe released.
Some people were even arrested after going to the police station to report a crime they had witnessed, Amnesty said.
"Someone can end up on death row because he was wandering and could not pay the police," it quoted one lawyer as saying.
The group cited a presidential commission report into the justice system as saying that inmates spent an average of 10-15 years on death row often in deplorable conditions, and that many of them were suffering from mental disorders.
"I spent two years on execution cell and I watched the executions live. The wardens sometimes did not have enough courage to watch," one former death row inmate, Arthur Angel, whose cell was close to the gallows, told Amnesty.
So decrepit were the facilities that even the gallows could malfunction. One lawyer said the rope sometimes failed to hold around the neck as the doors under the convict's feet were opened, meaning it could take several attempts to kill them.
Amnesty urged Nigeria's 36 states to abolish mandatory death sentences enshrined in their laws.
"At the very least, they should take steps to ensure that death penalties are not imposed in a manner that violates international human rights law," it said.
REUTERS
By Nick Tattersall
Tuesday Oct 21, 2008
