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Nigeria won’t execute convicted terrorists, AGF assures All
The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) , Mallam Abubakar Malami, has explained why the Federal Government cannot execute Boko Haram insurgents convicted for terrorism.
The AGF, who spoke on Wednesday through his representative, Sylvester Imahanobe, at Thé launching of the Amnesty International report on Global Death Sentences and Executiins 2015 in Abuja, said the Boko Haram sect in the country could not be executed because the laws under which they were tried did not prescribe death sentence.
Malami also promised to work with AI to stop executition of convicted criminals in the country, if the rights body proposed a bill to that effect.
Read also: ‘419ers’ defraud people using EFCC boss’ phone number
The AGF said: “Terrorists in Nigeria are tried under the Terrorism Prevention Act which does not carry death penalty. That is why even those Boko Haram members, who have been convicted cannot be executed because the maximum sentence prescribed by the law is life sentence.”
According to Malami, his office would be pleased to work to support any bill that came from AI on the abolition of death sentence, adding that from studies, death penalty does not stop people from committing crimes.
He also disclosed that the Federal Government was working on making the nation’s prison system corrective and not punitive, as it is currently.
Speaking earlier, the Country Director of Amnesty International, Mohammed Ibrahim, revealed that there was a dramatic global rise in the number of executions recorded in 2015, with more people put to death than at any point in the last quarter-century.
According to him, the upsurge was principally as a result of executions by Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, bringing the number of people executed worldwide to 1,634 people, marking a rise of more than 50 per cent on the year before.
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