ZAMBIA’S President Hakainde Hichilema has commuted the death sentences of 390 prisoners to life imprisonment.
The announcement follows Mr Hichilema’s decision last December to abolish the death penalty.
Home Affairs Minister Jack Mwiimbu told a media briefing that following the amendment of the penal code, no court could now impose the death penalty.
But the law could not be applied retrospectively so some prisoners still face the death penalty unless pardoned by the president, the national broadcaster quoted him as saying.
It is not known how many people remain on death row.
Human rights campaigners have hailed Mr Hichilema for his decision to scrap the death penalty. The last execution carried out in the southern African nation was in 1997.
