Zimbabwe’s parliament approved a bill to abolish the death penalty, a key step in repealing a law last used in the southern African country nearly 20 years ago, AP News informed.
Parliament announced on Thursday that the bill had been passed by senators the night before. The death penalty will be abolished if the president signs it.
The last time execution was used was in 2005, in part because at one point no one wanted to take on the job of state executioner. President Emmerson Mnangagwa publicly stated his opposition to the death penalty.
Mnangagwa cited his own experience of being sentenced to death, which was later commuted to 10 years in prison, for bombing a train during the country’s war of independence in the 1960s. He used presidential amnesties to commute death sentences to life imprisonment.
Amnesty International, which opposed the death penalty, urged Mnangagwa to sign the bill “without delay” and commute death sentences. Currently, there are more than 60 prisoners on death row in the country.
Zimbabwe was among four African countries, along with Kenya, Liberia and Ghana, that have recently taken “positive steps” towards abolishing the death penalty, Amnesty reported.
