Does death sentence still carry weight?

The Uganda Prisons spokesperson Frank Baine Mayanja said while death penalty remains part of Uganda’s legal framework, it has not been enforced in practice for over two decades because the President has not signed a death warrant allowing the execution of prisoners on death row.

Okello, 39, a Ugandan by birth and a United States citizen, was sentenced by High Court judge Alice Komuhangi Khauka, who described the case as among the “rarest of the rare,” noting that even probation officers had not encountered such brutality in the area.