Zimbabwe abolished the death penalty, almost 20 years after the southern African nation carried out its last execution.

The law was assented to by President Emmerson Mnangagwa after the nation’s cabinet agreed to scrap capital punishment in June, Chief Secretary to the Cabinet Martin Rushwaya said in a government decree on Tuesday.

“No court shall impose sentence of death upon a person for any offense, whenever committed, but instead shall impose whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case,” according to an act published in the official Government Gazette.
President Mnangagwa, who was sentenced to death by former Prime Minister Ian Smith’s White-minority government during Zimbabwe’s war for independence, has been a vocal opponent of capital punishment. His country now joins more than two-thirds of the world’s nations that have abolished the death penalty in either law or practice.

Zimbabwe has 65 prisoners on death row. It last carried out an execution in 2005.