Women carrying their albino children on May 5, 2014, in Dar es Salaam (AFP Photo/Bunyamin Aygun)
Arusha (Tanzania) (AFP) -
A court in Tanzania has sentenced four people to death for the murder
of an albino woman who was killed so her hacked-off limbs could be used
in magic, officials said Friday.
The sentencing
comes after Tanzania' President Jakaya Kikwete blasted the wave of
killings of albinos, whose body parts are used for witchcraft, as a
"disgusting and big embarrassment for the nation".
The
killers who were convicted include Charles Nassoro, the husband of the
murdered woman. Court officials in Mwanza, northwest Tanzania, said the
victim had her legs and right hand hacked off with an axe and machete
after being attacked while eating dinner in her village.
"The
prosecution has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt," High Court
judge Joaquine Demello told state radio after Thursday's verdict.
She
also told the Citizen newspaper the sentence had also taken into
account "the escalating killing of people with albinism in the country".
According
to a UN expert, attacks on people with albinism have claimed the lives
of at least 75 people since 2000, and that albino body parts sell for
around $600, with an entire corpse fetching $75,000.
Despite
the handing down of the death penalty, Tanzania has had a de facto
moratorium on capital punishment and carried out its last execution, by
hanging, in 1994. There are currently 17 people on death row in the
country for killing albinos.
Earlier this week Tanzania's president met with albino rights activists, promising firm action to stop the murders.
"The
government has long tried to do everything possible to stop the
killings, we are very serious with this. But we still need to enhance
our efforts to bring to an end these killings, which are disgusting and a
big embarrassment to the nation," Kikwete said in a statement.
Albinism
is a hereditary genetic condition which causes a total absence of
pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes. It affects one Tanzanian in
1,400, often as a result of inbreeding, experts say. In the West, it
affects just one person in 20,000.
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