On 23 July 2021, the Parliament of Sierra Leone, voted in favour of a Bill abolishing the death penalty. ICDP notes that this vote is the culmination of earlier commitments made by Government authorities creating an important momentum away from the moratorium that has been in place since the last executions – of 24 soldiers on charges of treason – were carried out in October 1998. Reports reaching ICDP suggest that in February 2021, President Bio officially gave the directives for the death penalty to be abolished from Sierra Leone’s laws. On 12 May 2021, during Sierra Leone’s United Nations´ Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Deputy Justice Minister Umaru Napoleon Koroma confirmed President Bio’s cabinet´s commitment to fully abolish the death penalty in the country. As of December 2020, 94 people were reportedly under sentence of death.
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