Rwandan President Paul Kagame

RWANDA TO SCRAP DEATH PENALTY END-JULY

May 31, 2007: Rwanda said a law abolishing the death penality would come into force at the end of July, six months after the government first announced plans to scrap capital punishment.
The step is seen as removing a major obstacle to the transfer back home of defendants facing trial over the 1994 genocide. The law will be debated and vote on June 6 and 7, and will go into force and published "around the end of July", Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama told AFP. The vote should be a mere formality given that President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has a large majority in both houses of parliament.
Death sentences already pronounced will be commuted to life imprisonment. (Sources: Agence France Presse, 31/05/2007)