OVER 50 Zimbabwean job-seekers have applied for the
hangman’s post which had remained vacant since 2005, a top official in the
Justice ministry has said.
Justice ministry secretary Virginia Mabhiza said her office
would soon go through the applications, but would not give a timeline as to
when the appointment will be made.
“The response has been overwhelming and the applications
have been from both men and women interested in taking up the position of
hangman. We have received over 50 applications in the past few months.
“People are very interested,” Mabhiza said yesterday.
Zimbabwe last executed a prisoner on death row in 2005 and
international rights lobby group Amnesty International has applauded the
country for the “10-year hiatus”, urging authorities to declare an official
moratorium on the death penalty.
Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the immediate past
Justice minister, has consistently declared Zimbabwe would not implement the
death penalty “under my watch”.
Mnangagwa, who survived the hangman’s noose at the height
of the liberation struggle, said he had raised his opposition to capital
punishment with President Robert Mugabe.
According to Mabhiza, the country has 92 people on death
row, but the absence of the hangman has stalled their execution.
Asked whether it would not be complicated to apply the
death penalty in Zimbabwe given constitutional provisions that protect
teenagers, women and all those beyond 70 years from capital punishment, Mabhiza
said the provision was a step towards abolition.
“We should not look at it as discriminatory, but as part of
steps that we have taken as a country towards abolition. But as things stand
all people who fall in the category not protected by the Constitution can be
hanged.
“This means all men between 18 and 69 years and have been
convicted of murder in aggravated circumstances can receive capital
punishment,” she said.
“Remember under the previous dispensation, we had seven
categories of people who could be hanged, but now we are left with one. We are
moving in the right direction as far as abolition is concerned”.
Government sources claim Mnangagwa’s successor, former
Central Intelligence Organisation boss Happyton Bonyongwe, is also against the
death penalty.
“The indication is that he is also against the death
penalty. We will wait and see how things move, but he has indicated that he is
in support of abolition of capital punishment,” said a source.
Mabhiza would not be drawn into commending on Bonyongwe’s
position.
“He is still new to the ministry and we are still to hear
his position,” she said. Newsday
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