Capital punishment remains a legal penalty for multiple crimes in The Gambia. However, the country has taken recent steps towards abolishing the death penalty.
Execution methods
Under Gambian law, hanging and the firing squad are both permitted for executions. The Minister of Justice is tasked with deciding which method will be used in each execution. The Gambian Criminal Code historically called for executions to take place by hanging, and human rights organization Amnesty International published a 1989 document titled When the State Kills in which they identified hanging as Gambia's sole method of execution. However, in 2012, Gambia allegedly carried out nine executions by lethal injection.
Post-independence developments
The first person to be executed after Gambia won independence from the British Empire in 1965 was Mustapha Danso. Danso, a constable in the military of the Gambia, was convicted of murdering Emmanuel Mahoney, the deputy commander of the Gambia's paramilitary field force. The murder, which took place in October 1980, and Danso's conviction and death sentence in July 1981, led to an attempted coup d'état of the government on July 30, 1981. On September 30, 1981, he was executed in the nation's capital, Banjul. Until 2012, this was the most recent execution in the country.
Between independence from the British Empire in 1965 and their initial plans to abolish the death penalty in April 1993, 87 people were sentenced to death. Most of them were sentenced due to their involvement in an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Sir Dawda Jawara which took place on July 30, 1981. The coup attempt resulted in many deaths and many trials; by May 1984, there were 64 people involved in the coup attempt who were under death sentences. All of the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment by 1985. In September 1985, President Jawara announced publicly that he was personally opposed to the death penalty.
The number of death sentences in The Gambia steadily decreased from 1984 onward. Sometime in 1992, businessman Lamin Darbo was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, becoming the first person to be sentenced to death by Gambia since 1987. In January 1992, two men received death sentences for murder from the Supreme Court of The Gambia, and in March of the same year, a third man, also convicted of murder, was sentenced to death as well. However, on December 31, 1992, the two prisoners who received their death sentences in January 1992 allegedly had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
In August 1991, Mamadu Jarju, a prisoner and a criminal suspect, was tortured and ultimately died in custody due to his mistreatment while in custody. Two police officers were judged to have been responsible for Jarju's death, and they went on trial in October 1991. In February 1992, the Supreme Court of The Gambia found them guilty of "assault occasioning bodily harm" and sentenced them to three years' imprisonment; a third officer was acquitted. Following that court decision, Gambia's Director of Public Prosecutions appealed both the acquittal and the court's failure to convict the other two officers of murder, as a murder conviction could have led to a death sentence. In December 1992, the third officer's acquittal was affirmed on appeal, but the Court of Appeal of The Gambia ruled that the other two officers should have been convicted of murder for Jarju's death, and they were sentenced to death afterwards.
In April 1993, President Jawara formally proposed abolishing the death penalty. The Gambian Parliament passed bills to remove the country's death penalty laws from their criminal code in April 1993 by overwhelmingly supportive margins. Between independence in 1965 and the initial abolition in 1993, only one execution, that of Danso, was carried out in the country.
In 1994, President Yahya Jammeh took power following a coup. In 1995, President Jammeh reinstated the death penalty.
21st century usage
In April 2011, The Gambia abolished the death penalty for drug offenses. In December 2011, there were approximately 42 inmates under a death sentence in Gambia. Gambian law currently permits the death penalty for treason, murder, and terrorism. The Gambian Constitution specifically prohibits the death penalty for any civilian crimes other than murder.
Prior to 2012, the most recent execution in The Gambia had been that of Mustapha Danso in 1981. Like many sub-Saharan African nations, The Gambia had taken measures throughout the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century to reduce both the amount of crimes that were punishable by death, and the amount of prisoners that they would sentence to death.