President Emmerson Mnangagwa Tuesday said Zimbabwean prisons remain the safest places currently as the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread across the world forcing countries to go on lockdown.
This was after Cabinet last week approved the release of more than 6,000 inmates serving sentences for a range of non-violent crimes under a general reduction of jail terms granted by the president.
Mnangagwa was then supposed to exercise amnesty that would see a reduction in a number of inmates currently in jails which is in excess of 22 000, way above the carrying capacity of 17 000 countrywide.
Questioned on whether the amnesty program would still go ahead in light of the coronavirus, Mnangagwa said the amnesty program had no relation to measures which were put in place which limit crowds to not more 100 people at any given time as the government tries to limit the spread of the virus in the country, although no cases have been reported.
He said it is safer for prisoners to remain in their cells while discouraging prison visits in order to avoid the spread of the virus
“The Amnesty program has no relationship with with the pandemic. In other measures, we are discouraging people to visit their loved ones in prisons, that will be restricted. If there is a safer place now, it is the prison,” Mnangagwa said.
In 2018, Mnangagwa granted another amnesty – cutting the sentences of 3 000 prisoners in Zimbabwe in a bid to decongest prisons.
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services minister Monica Mutsvangwa said the sentence reduction would apply to defined categories of offences, rather than affecting all prisoners.
“Cabinet noted that the country’s prison population currently stands at 22 000 against an official holding capacity of 17 000.
“The general amnesty, which will be for certain specified categories of prisoners, will certainly decongest the country’s prisons and alleviate challenges being experienced by the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services,” Mutsvangwa said.
“The prisoners still have criminal records, which will count against them if they repeat the offence, and their convictions stand. So they are not pardoned, a process that nullifies the conviction, but are let out of prison early,” she said.
