Malawi: Life After Death Row

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Byson expected to be dead long ago. Now in his sixties, he was given a death sentence quarter of a century ago. But instead of being executed, he’s found himself back at home, looking after his elderly mother, holding down a job, and volunteering to help other prisoners leaving jail.

His release was part of a re-sentencing project in Malawi. Anyone who was given the death penalty automatically for killing someone can have their case re-examined. What is known as a mandatory death sentence was ruled to be unconstitutional, so now judges are giving custodial sentences instead, or in some cases inmates are even being freed.

Charlotte McDonald travels to the small town of Balaka to visit the Halfway House where Byson mentors former inmates. She visits someone who came out of jail a few years ago and now runs her own business in the village where she was born. And she speaks to one of the last remaining people on death row about their upcoming re-sentencing hearing.

Many of those former death row inmates are now back in their communities living and working – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that ordinary Malawians are ready for the death penalty to be abolished.

(Image: Former inmate Byson sits with his mother, Lucy, outside her house. Credit: BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte McDonald and this week I'm in Malawi.
0:06.0	I've come to find out about a groundbreaking program which has seen the release of more than a hundred prisoners who were previously sentenced to death.
0:14.5	Many of those former death row inmates are now back in their communities living and working,
0:19.7	but that doesn't necessarily mean that ordinary Malawians are ready for the death penalty to be abolished.
0:26.0	It's early in the morning and you can hear the insects and birds around me.
0:36.0	I'm surrounded by people walking in around the ground.
0:39.0	They've all got one thing in common.
0:41.0	They're all former prisoners. This is called the halfway house and
0:45.6	this is the stepping stone for people to make the transition from prison to life on the
0:49.5	outside. I'm in
1:00.0	Charlotte McDonald and in this week's assignment on the BBC World Service, I'm in Malawi.
1:04.0	I've come to find out about a groundbreaking program
1:07.0	which has seen the release of more than 100 prisoners who were previously sentenced to death
1:11.0	after a legal ruling allowed them to have their
1:13.7	cases revisited. I'm starting my journey at this halfway house to meet one of its
1:19.4	most successful graduates, Bison Kowla.
1:23.0	When I was given a sentence, my mother was there, everybody started crying.
1:31.0	I knew what is going to happen because during my time I was waiting for my case I could
1:40.7	hear people crying when going to the cleaning machine.
1:44.0	Bison had been a successful farmer,
1:50.0	but he says his life changed forever
1:52.0	when one night after heavy rain he slipped while helping one of his sick workers down some steps.
	...

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