Two days after the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) sent a public appeal to President Goodluck Jonathan urging him to use his position and the country’s influence within the ECOWAS to urgently prevail on the Gambian authorities not to execute two Nigerians and over 30 Gambians on death row in the country, the President of the US, Mr. Barrack Obama and the United Nations condemned the execution of nine death row inmates by the government of The Gambia.
In his reaction, Obama who was speaking in a statement through the Spokesperson of the Department of State, Ms. Victoria Nuland, said that the United States is greatly concerned by the Government of The Gambia’s execution of nine death row inmates.
“We condemn the lack of transparency and haste under which these executions were effected and the apparent lack of due process in the proceedings leading to these death sentences” the statement reads in part.
The United States leader also called on the Government of The Gambia to ensure that its own internal laws are respected and followed, adding that the government of The Gambia should also uphold its international obligations under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Obama also urged President Jammeh to immediately halt all executions in order to review all of The Gambia’s capital cases and ensure that they are in accordance with The Gambia’s domestic law and its international obligations
Also, an independent United Nations human rights expert strongly condemned the recent execution of nine people in the Gambia, and called on the Government to refrain from executing an additional 39 people reported to be on death row.
“This stream of executions is a major step backwards for the country, and for the protection of the right to life in the world as a whole,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns.
The expert recalled that the country was at the forefront in the region’s efforts to abolish the death penalty in law and practice, with a moratorium on the death penalty for 27 years and the abolition of capital punishment for drug offences in April 2011.
The prisoners were shot dead by firing squad on Sunday, according to media reports that cited the country’s interior ministry. President Yahya Jammeh had reportedly vowed to kill all death-row inmates by mid-September.
Prior to the nine executions carried out on 26 August, the last official execution in the West African nation took place in 1985, according to a news release issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Mr. Heyns also voiced concern that death sentences were imposed in violation of major international standards, including the most serious crimes provisions.
“According to available evidence the trials did not meet due process safeguards,” he underscored. “The executions were carried out in secrecy, away from the public and from the families, and do not meet the requirements of transparency.”
Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back, in an unpaid capacity, on specific human rights themes.