Malawi president to introduce new law for albino killers

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Malawi president to introduce new law for albino killers

3:58 CAT | 05 Jul 2016

File photo / Mutharika says he'll impose stiff sentences for anyone found with body parts or bones of human beings

Malawi President Peter Mutharika Friday announced that he will introduce a new law to deal with “evil-minded” people involved in the killings of persons with albinism in the country.

Muntharika made the announcement at a development rally held in the former Malawi capital, Zomba.

The president’s announcement follows a series of abductions and killings of people with albinism in the country for ritual practices.

The Malawi leader denounced the trend and described as “total nonsense” the notion of hoping to get rich by killing persons with albinism for their body parts.

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“Next week I’m introducing a new law amending the Penal Code,” said Mutharika.
“You’ll see what is waiting for them. There’s going to be stiff sentences for anyone found with body parts or bones of human beings,” the president added.

Malawi’s laws stipulate death sentence as a maximum penalty to those convicted of murder but no president has ever endorsed one before.

In the wake of the albino killings in Malawi, some sectors of the society have been pushing the authorities to put the death penalty into effect.

Recently, parliamentarian for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Bon Kalindo staged a demonstration urging Malawi’s Parliament, currently sitting in the capital Lilongwe, to bring into effect the death penalty to any albino killer in the country.

Calls for the death penalty for anyone convicted of murder have been watered down by the Malawi Government and Amnesty International.

Amnesty International Media Manager Robert Shivambu told journalists at a press briefing held in Lilongwe prior to the meeting with Mutharika that the organisation believed that there were other ways of dealing with the matter than the death sentence.

Malawi Government spokesperson Patricia Kaliati also told state radio MBC recently that the maximum sentence for murder convicts remained life imprisonment and that Mutharika would not commit himself to be the first leader of the country to endorse the death sentence.

With President Mutharika’s announcement of the introduction of a new, stiffer law on the matter, it remains to be seen what the Malawi leader has in store for the perpetrators of the infamous killings of people with albinism.

Meanwhile, close to 20 cases of cold-blood killings of people with albinism have been reported since 2015 and over 65 cases of abuse and exhumation of graves have been reported during the same period.

Source: Xinhua