OFFICE OF HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS EXPRESSES DISMAY AT EXECUTION OF 24 PERSONS IN SIERRA LEONE

HR/98/77
21 October 1998



The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has learned with dismay that twenty four former members of the military junta which ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to March 1998 were executed on 19 October 1998, following the pronouncement of their death sentences at the conclusion of a Court Martial on 12 October 1998.

Sierra Leone is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol thereto. While article 6 of the Covenant does not prohibit the death penalty, it makes its imposition conditional upon the strict observance of procedural guarantees. This includes the right to appeal a capital sentence, a right that was denied to the executed individuals.

Notwithstanding the human rights violations which have been committed in Sierra Leone by the former military regime - violations which cannot be condoned and must be investigated - the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is convinced that the most effective way of fighting violence is through the establishment of the rule of law and the implementation of a genuine process of national reconciliation and reconstruction in Sierra Leone.