The African Union has asked Gambias President Yahya Jammeh to renounce plans to execute all death row prisoners next month.Mr Jammeh made the comment during a speech he gave to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid.A Gambian pressure group says many of the 47 death row inmates are political prisoners or have faced unfair trials.According to Amnesty International, no executions have been carried out in The Gambia for 27 years.The death penalty was abolished when former President Dawda Jawara was in power but reinstated in 1995 shortly after Mr Jammeh seized power in a military coup.By the middle of next month, all the death sentences would have been carried out to the letter; there is no way my government will allow 99% of the population to be held to ransom by criminals, President Jammeh said in an speech on Sunday, which was broadcast on national television the next day.In response, Benins President Thomas Boni Yayi, who is the current chair of the African Union, sent his foreign minister to The Gambia.
