Grenada: Human rights lawyer wants death penalty abolished

Human rights attorney Anslem Clouden has called for the removal of the death penalty in Grenada, saying it is cruel, inhumane and degrading.



Grenada has not executed anyone since 1978.



However, Clouden, who recently returned from an abolitionist conference in Spain, said capital punishment was used by plantation owners, during slavery, as a means of terrorising slaves and bringing them into subjection.



Clouden said as an abolitionist, he has accepted that for every crime there should be a punishment.



However, he said he believes the cause of crime is not from an innate propensity in a person to be violent but from the failures of the political, economic and judicial system.



Thirteen countries of the region still have the death penalty on their books and St. Kitts and Nevis was the most recent country to carry out an execution in 2008.



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