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Do not execute Magai Matiop Ngong

Magai Matiop Ngong was a schoolboy when he was sentenced to death for murder in an incident which, he told the judge, was an accident. Only 15 years old, he did not have a lawyer to help him until after his trial. Two years later, at 17, he is on death row in Juba Central Prison, surviving on the hope that he will win his appeal against his execution and get back to school.

When Magai Matiop Ngong was 15, he loved running and gospel singing. He was in secondary school and had ambitions to help people when he grew up. But life as he knew it came to a sudden end in 2017, when he was convicted of murder.

The judge sentenced him to death by hanging. “The feeling is not good at all,” he says, “to be informed that you are going to die. I am not happy for that….”

Last year, seven people were hanged in South Sudan: one of them, like Magai, was just a child. Two years after his sentence, Magai is on death row in Juba Central Prison waiting for his appeal, but he hasn’t lost his “hope…to be out and to continue…school.”

Take Action: Tell the President of South Sudan to cancel Magai’s death sentence.

⬇ Make Your Voice Heard ⬇

Representative

Akuei

Bona Malwal

Permanent Representative of the Republic of South Sudan to the United Nations

Dear Ambassador,

I am writing in concern for Magai Matiop Ngong, a 17-year-old on death row in South Sudan. He was 15 years old when he was convicted of the murder of his cousin and sentenced to death by hanging. During his trial, Magai told the judge that he was only 15 years old at the time of the crime and that his cousin’s death was an accident. Magai did not have a lawyer during his trial.

Anyone below 18 years of age at the time they were involved in a crime must not be sentenced to death, let alone be executed. How old they are at the time of trial or sentencing is not relevant. The use of the death penalty against people like Magai is strictly prohibited by Section 21(2) of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011, and under Article 37(a) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which South Sudan is a party.

Last year, seven people were hanged in South Sudan: one of them, like Magai, was just a child. This must stop, and Magai’s death sentence must be cancelled.

Yours sincerely,

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