HARARE - More than a thousand prisoners were freed on Tuesday, in a dramatic act of acknowledgement of the horrifying crisis in the country's jails. The sweeping amnesty was extended to all prisoners under 18 and all female prisoners; all prisoners certified as terminally ill; all prisoners in open prisons; and all prisoners serving sentences of three years or less whoThose serving a sentence for murder, rape or other sexual offences, carjacking, armed robbery, stock theft, or tampering with ZESA power lines and installations, would remain behind bars, officials said.Inmates crowded into facilities all over the country were stunned, including a 34-year-old woman who had been in Chikurubi maximum security prison for three years on a charge of infanticide. “I was so desperate that I had prepared to spend the rest of my life in prison,” she said.
On Tuesday, the prison on the outskirts of Harare became the scene of a chaotic party, as thousands of family members rushed to see their loved ones walk free. The amnesty is a sign that the leadership is at least embarrassed by the problem of overcrowding in the prisons and beginning to look at ways of doing something about it. Many officials recognise that the vast majority of those behind bars are, at worst, petty offenders. Those responsible for wholesale corruption, organised crime, land grab and contract State-sanctioned murders are rarely caught.