President, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is surely tired of wrong doers and says he will soon authorize the hanging of 74 death row inmates in Luzira Prisons. Currently, there are 278 death row inmates in Luzira Maximum prisons. 204 of these have since appealed their conviction and are awaiting judgment.
But, 74 convicts can only be saved from the hangman's noose through the prerogative of mercy by the president. Speaking at the pass out of 706 prison warders and officers in Luzira Prisons on Thursday afternoon, president, Museveni said he will no longer be merciful to those convicted and sentenced to death.
"I have not been hanging these people because of my Christian views. But I think being too lenient is becoming a problem because these criminals are thinking that they have a right to kill people. I think that I should change this and hang a few," Museveni said.
Uganda Prison last hanged 29 death row convicts in 1999. Since then, no one has been hanged owing to pressure from Civil Society and the International Community on government to scrap the death sentence from its law book. In 2009, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty.
The court dismissed an appeal by more than 417 death row inmates who petitioned for the abolishment of the death penalty on the grounds that the punishment is unusually cruel, degrading and inhuman.
However the panel of judges who heard the case ruled that it was unconstitutional to keep convicts on death row for more than three years and directed that sentences on prisoners in this category be reduced to life in jail.
