Most of the 5,390 prisoners amnestied and pardoned were serving time in Maputo and Nampula – A Verdade

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Most of the 5,390 prisoners amnestied and pardoned were serving time in Maputo and Nampula – A Verdade

3:35 CAT | 03 Jun 2020

Image: A Verdade

Most of the 5,390 criminals who benefited from the amnesty granted to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in Mozambique’s overcrowded prisons were serving sentences in seven prisons located in Maputo city, Maputo province and Nampula province, A Verdade reports.

The Amnesty Law was approved in early April, taking into account that national prisons housed 19,784 inmates, almost double their official capacity, making them “places of high risk for the spread of infectious diseases, including Covid-19”.

The amnesty benefited 5,390 criminals of both sexes serving sentences for crimes punishable by up to one year in prison, and excluding murderers, child rapists, kidnappers, people and drug traffickers and terrorists.

@Verdade learned from the Ministry of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs, that 477 inmates covered by the amnesty were serving time in Maputo provincial prison, while a further 343 received pardons under the same legal provision.

Still in Maputo, which has 4,476 prisoners in five prisons, two citizens serving time in the preventive prison establishment were pardoned, 16 women serving time in the special jail were amnestied and, at the Boane Youth Recovery Institution. 13 were amnestied and two were pardoned.

In the province of Gaza, (1,700 prisoners), 427 prisoners were amnestied at the provincial prison and another 23 in the Mabalane jail. Eleven criminals serving sentences in the Gaza provincial prison and another 13 detained at the Mabalane prison were also pardoned.

Of the 1,307 prisoners serving time in Inhambane, 44 prisoners provincial jail received amnesty, while 476 were pardoned.

Of Sofala’s 1,822 prisoners, 420 were amnestied and 244 pardoned.

At the Regional Centro establishment in Manica Province, where there were 2,580 prisoners, 150 were amnestied and another 181 were pardoned.

In Zambézia, where there were 1,857 prisoners, 602 criminals benefited from the amnesty decree, of whom 528 were amnestied and 74 were pardoned.

In Tete, 401 prisoners out of a total of 1,051 were amnestied.

In Nampula, where there were 2,901 prisoners, 588 criminals serving sentences at the provincial establishment were amnestied, and 155 others were pardoned.

Of the 1,094 prisoners serving time in Cabo Delgado, 197 were entitled to amnesty and 221 were pardoned.

In Niassa, 384 of 996 criminals benefited from the Amnesty Law, of whom 217 were amnestied and 113 were pardoned .

Source: A Verdade