The European Union has congratulated the Equatorial Guinean authorities for having abolished the death penalty but has urged the African country to complete this achievement by also excluding capital punishment from its Code of Military Justice.
The country’s new Penal Code, published at the beginning of this week, includes the abolition of the death penalty, announced in mid-September by the Equatoguinean president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
“With this historic step, Equatorial Guinea joins the majority of countries in the world that have eliminated the death penalty. This abolition reflects the growing trend throughout the world to abandon this type of punishment”, the European Union has celebrated through a statement from its European External Action Service.
However, the EU has urged Equatorial Guinea to remove this “cruel and inhuman punishment” also from its Code of Military Justice in order to “complete this important achievement” towards the total suppression of a punishment that “does not act as a deterrent of the crime and makes any judicial error irreversible”.
“The European Union is firmly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and will continue to work for its abolition in the few countries that still apply it,” the European External Action Service has settled.
