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Herald Reporter

PEOPLE convicted of sexual crimes and offences against morality will not benefit from the amnesty granted to over 4 000 prisoners by President Mnangagwa last week.

This is contained in General Notice 498A of 2024 published yesterday in an Extraordinary Gazette, correcting an error published last week in General Notice 467 of 2024: Clemency Order No.1 of 2024. 

“It is hereby notified that General Notice 467 of 2024, Clemency Order No. 1 of 2024, published in the Government Gazette Extraordinary, dated 16th April, 2024, contains an error. 

“The General Notice is corrected on sections 2, 4, 5 and 6 by the deletion of “inmates charged under the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (Chapter 9:23) are excluded from this amnesty” and the substitution of “inmates charged under Chapter V Part III (Sexual Crimes and Crimes Against Morality) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (Chapter 9:23) are excluded from this amnesty. 

“The General Notice is corrected in section 10 by the deletion of ‘paragraph 12’ and the substitution of ‘section 11’. General Notice 467 of 2024, is hereby corrected accordingly,” reads General Notice 498A.

Section 2 provides full remission of the remaining period of imprisonment for all juveniles that is, those inmates under the age 18 and had served one third of the sentence by April 18 while section 4 provides full remission of sentence to all inmates certified terminally ill by a Correctional Medical Officer or a Government Medical Officer (GMO).

Section 5 pardoned all inmates serving terms of imprisonment at the Open Prison while those aged 60 years and above, and who would have served one tenth of their sentence by April 18 were granted amnesty under section 6.

Following the correction of the error, those inmates in the above categories convicted of sexual and morality crimes are excluded from the amnesty.