Mozambique mulls solutions to prison congestions

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Mozambique mulls solutions to prison congestions

12:25 CAT | 09 May 2016

In File Cub Of Mozambique / Isaque Chande, Minister of Justice, Religious and Constitutional matters of Mozambique

Mozambique’s Minister of Justice, Religious and Constitutional matters, Isaque Chande has said he will hold urgently talks with the Attorney-General’s Office and the Constitutional Council to find solutions to the country’s overcrowded prisons.In a report by a local paper on Sunday, Domingo said central to his plans is the Maputo Penitentiary which currently accommodates 2,744 convicts beyond its holding capacity of 800 inmates.

“We need to improve our coordination with the courts and with the prosecution services to ensure compliance with the law,” he was quoted as saying.

Domingo statement followed his visit to the Maputo prison where he observed lack of coordination between the various bodies involved in the administration of justice as a key problem.

According to him, one reason for overcrowding is that people who should be allowed to await their trial at home, are instead kept in prison well beyond the legal limits for preventive detention.

“We have to establish conditions so that people who have already been held in preventive detention under the law, are allowed to leave prison and wait for their trials in freedom and that would be one way of relieving the pressure on our prisons,” Chande suggested.

During Chande’s visit to the prison, some of the prisoners claimed they are constantly tortured by warders.

Health conditions in Mozambican prisons are squalid.

In April the National Prison Service (SERNAP) announced that, in the first quarter of this year, 51 prisoners had died in the country’s 81 prisons.

25 of them had died of AIDS and a further 21 from tuberculosis.

Source: APA