Amnesty International Opposes Death Penalty For 12 Nigerian Soldiers

Posted by African Examiner Crime Watch, Featured, Latest Headlines Sunday, October 5th, 2014

Ayodele Afolabi, Abuja

The Amnesty International has kicked against court marshal of 12 soldiers by the Nigerian Military Court in Abuja.

The military had three weeks ago court marshal and convicted 12 solders for mutiny after they fired shots at the General Officer Commander GOC of Nigerian Army in Borno State.

But in its official reaction at the weekend, the Amnesty International Media Director, Ms Susana Flood said that her organisation was totally opposed the death penalty notwithstanding the offence.

She said: “The reason we have not said anything about the conviction is because we are unable to monitor the trial to be able to say it is fair which is very important for us. We have to back our comment with fact.

“We opposed death penalty in all instances. In case of the soldiers we are opposing their death sentence. We are looking at the trial to study all that transpired”.

According to her, human right abuse would not just end one day but score her organisation high on the success recorded so far.

“If you look at our work on the death penalty and you examine the statistics when we started campaign against death penalty, which was over 20 years and compare to now, you will see that a number of countries executing prisoners have decreased.

“Sadly Nigeria is still executing. Eliminating death has been a slow bit of progress but you can see the achievement we have made around the world”.