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Scrap death penalty - Mandela
14/01/2003
10:39 - (SA)
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.
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