Lawmakers in Ghana’s parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for nearly all crimes, making Ghana the latest African country to repeal capital punishment.
The West African country’s last execution took place in 1993, where death sentences were pronounced for murder and treason.
Lawmakers voted late Tuesday to remove the death penalty from the country’s statute books.
“The death sentence is too final and as a country that respects human rights, we can’t continue to have it as part of our laws,” Francis-Xavier Sosu, an opposition MP who proposed the reform, told media.
The prison service stated that 172 inmates are presently on death row, and their sentences will be commuted to life imprisonment.
Amnesty International, a rights group, hailed the vote as a significant milestone towards the abolition of the death penalty in Ghana. The vote aimed to remove capital punishment from both the 1960 criminal offense act and the 1962 armed forces act.