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Nominee for Deputy Minister to the Office of Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, has rebuffed calls for abolishing the death penalty in Ghana.
According to him, some death sentences involving brutal murderers should be executed in order to send a strong signal to perpetrators of such crimes.
The Deputy Minister-designate expressed this strong conviction on the death penalty when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament to be vetted on Tuesday, June 15, 2021.
He said, “As to whether Ghana has agreed that the death penalty be abolished, I cannot confirm but I know there are various groups agitating that Ghana abolish the death sentence.”
“Speaking for myself, as a human rights activist, human rights lawyer, I hold the view that life is precious but that doesn’t mean you must take someone’s life.”
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“I’m a realist and a positivist. If you look at some of the murders that we have, especially when it comes to robbery with murder and the callous manner some of them carry out these actions, I think that we need to hold on for some time. Not at this stage,” he stated.
He noted that Ghana could adopt the United States system and grade murders.
According to him, he subscribes to execution of the full sentences of some culprits and stressed, “If it is better to kill them they must be killed.”
“At times, it sends a signal to others that it doesn’t pay to kill. But so far as we have it now, people are sentenced to death and they are put in prison in Nsawam”
“Some of them, under some circumstances, you may want to sympathize with them but there are others that I think if we’re to scrap death sentence, we may have more murders,” he stated.
“So at the moment, don’t subscribe to scrapping the death penalty. I know Amnesty International and human rights activists want it scrapped.”
“I hold a different view and I think at this stage we need to keep the laws in our statutes books and if need be carry out some of the death sentences,” he added.
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Frontpageghana.com/Ghana
