Capital punishment in Botswana
Capital punishment in Botswana is usually issued for murder under aggravated circumstances and is carried out by hanging. There is on average one execution per year, and the execution usually takes place some years after the trial. One execution was carried out in 2016, two in 2018, and one in 2019.
A controversial case was that of Mariëtte Bosch, a South African immigrant who was sentenced to death for murdering her lover's wife. She was sentenced in 1999 and executed two years later. She was the fourth woman to be executed since independence in 1966 and one of the few white women ever officially executed in Africa. She was hanged in secret, without her relatives being notified.
The human rights organisation Ditshwanelo has campaigned against the death penalty. By 2018 over 40 African countries had stopped capital punishment and Botswana was now the only country practicing it in the Southern African Development Community. In 2020, Mmika Michael Mpe was hanged for the 2014 murder of Reinette Vorster.
