PRESS RELEASE: Second AdvocAid client granted appeal on murder conviction after over ten years in detention
February 15th 2019
AdvocAid is pleased to announce that yet another appeal on behalf of one of our clients was granted by the Court of Appeal this week. Our client, Alpha* had his sentence quashed on Tuesday February 12th, following a more than four-year wait for judgement.
The Court of Appeal concluded that there was insufficient evidence linking Alpha to the crime, and noted other irregularities from Alpha’s hearing in 2009. The Court of Appeal determined that it was not appropriate to order a re-trial and granted Alpha’s appeal against his conviction and sentence.
AdvocAid supports women and girls in conflict with the law. We first took on Alpha’s case when he was jointly charged with his mother, Fatu*, whom AdvocAid also represented. Following their arrest in 2008, Alpha and Fatu were both found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 2009. Fatu was pardoned in the 2011 Independence Day Pardons and subsequently released from detention. Alpha remained behind bars and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
AdvocAid first filed an appeal on Alpha’s behalf in 2011. Alpha’s case was heard by the Court of Appeal in 2014 and closed for judgement in February 2015. Alpha and AdvocAid have been waiting almost four years to hear the verdict of his appeal. Now that Alpha is released, AdvocAid will continue to assist him with post-detention support and reintegration, having spent more than 10 years in prison.
AdvocAid once again calls on the Government of Sierra Leone to review the death penalty as a mandatory sentence for murder. Mandatory death sentences remove the ability of the courts to consider relevant mitigating circumstances during sentencing. [1] This is the second successful appeal in recent weeks that AdvocAid has filed on behalf of our clients and represented them in court, both of which were originally death sentences. Two weeks ago, our client Aminata* was released after waiting four years to hear the verdict of her appeal.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
*Not their real names
Interview: Alpha’s legal representatives and AdvocAid’s Executive Director are available for interview. If interested, please contact: Rebecca Wood, +232 (0) 7733 1897 or executive.director@advocaidsl.org
To learn more about Aminata’s case and successful appeal, please read our press release: http://advocaidsl.org/press-release-advocaid-client-granted-appeal-on-murder-conviction-after-over-nine-years-in-detention/
Background: AdvocAid works with girls and women caught up in Sierra Leone’s often unjust legal system. We are the only organisation in West Africa providing holistic access to justice via free legal representation, education empowerment, detainee support and a moving forward programme, ensuring detainees leave as stronger women with brighter prospects.
Today, we work in several towns across Sierra Leone to ensure these women and their children receive fair legal representation, are educated on their legal rights and offered rehabilitation support upon release. As well as providing these short-term interventions, we deliver advocacy and law reform projects focused on wider issues impacting women in the justice system, ensuring we are changing women’s future prospects in the long term.
For more details on our work, please visit our website: http://advocaidsl.org/
[1] Many countries in Africa have moved away from the use of the mandatory death penalty. For example, the Supreme Court of Kenya declared in 2017 that the mandatory death penalty was unconstitutional, as have Malawi and Uganda.