Death penalty for Egypt's Mubarak: How will that play with the tin-pot despot set?

Egypt’s long-ruling former President Hosni Mubarak may face the death penalty if found guilty in his ongoing trial in Cairo. Mr. Mubarak is accused of ordering the killing of protesters during the Tahrir Square demonstrations that ultimately led to the downfall of his government in February.

Sending Mubarak to the gallows may feel like a good signal to send to strong-man leaders – that their misdeeds in office will be judged, and judged harshly, in courts of law.

But history shows that hard sentencing for bad leaders can sometimes backfire.

For every leader who steps down peacefully after a few terms in office on the African continent, there are many others who take the president-for-life package. Some, especially those who rose to power by leading armed independence movements, remember the brutal death of late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and plan to stay in power as a way to stay alive. Others look at the prosecution of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and the expected trial of former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo on human rights charges at The Hague, and worry that they too could face a lifetime in prison.

According to leaked diplomatic cables posted by Wikileaks, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe “genuinely fears ‘hanging’ if he leaves office,” and thus has little incentive to withdraw from politics. Mr. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe for 32 years.

In December 2010, the Monitor reported that investigators had discovered evidence that supporters of Kenya’s former Higher Education Minister William Ruto planned a fresh wave of organized mass violence to prevent their leader from being arrested for his alleged role in orchestrating post-election violence in 2008. The 2008 round of violence played out along ethnic lines, and killed some 1,300 people and displaced 300,000. Mr. Ruto, along with five other prominent Kenyans, have now been formally charged and await trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands.

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