A court in Shinyanga, Tanzania, has quashed the death sentence of Lemi Limbu, a woman with severe intellectual disabilities. Limbu, now in her early 30s, was convicted of murdering her daughter in 2015 and spent over a decade in prison awaiting execution. On March 4, the court declared she can appeal, but a retrial date has not been set, leaving her incarcerated while legal proceedings continue.

Lawyers and activists have condemned her sentence, arguing she should not be in prison at all due to her condition. Limbu is a survivor of brutal sexual and domestic violence, with a developmental age equivalent to a child. Under Tanzanian and international law, she should not be held criminally liable because of her intellectual disability. Anna Henga, executive director of the Legal and Human Rights Centre, stated, "She was not supposed to be in prison in the first place. I’m happy her conviction was quashed, but sad the court ordered a retrial, which could take up to another 10 years with delays."

At her initial trial, Limbu pleaded not guilty, but as she is illiterate, she did not understand a police statement allegedly admitting to the murder. Her 2015 conviction was nullified in 2019 due to procedural errors, yet in 2022, she was retried and sentenced to death again, with the court excluding medical evidence about her disabilities and abuse history. A second appeal was filed in 2022 and heard in February, highlighting systemic flaws in the justice process.

Limbu's life has been marked by hardship: her father beat her mother, she was repeatedly raped in her village, and she gave birth at age 15. Later, she married an older man, had two more children, and fled domestic violence with her youngest child, Tabu. After meeting Kijiji Nyamabu, who refused to accept Tabu, the child was found strangled. Limbu was arrested in August 2011, while Nyamabu was never detained, raising questions about investigative fairness.

Last year, a coalition of 24 African and international human rights groups condemned Limbu's sentence as part of an appeal to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. In July, four UN human rights experts wrote to the Tanzanian government expressing concern. In Tanzania, the death penalty is mandatory for murder, though no executions have occurred since 1995. According to Henga, over 500 people are on death row in the country. Rose Malle, a wrongfully imprisoned activist, noted, "This situation is often caused by weaknesses within the justice system."

Source: www.theguardian.com