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SAVED BY STARMER
Sir Keir Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to save baby killers and axe murderers
SIR Keir Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
The Labour leader boasted last week about his decades of international experience.
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The former lawyer once bragged he got his knighthood for “a 20-year litigation strategy across the world to get rid of the death penalty”.
But The Sun can reveal that his free legal work helped some sick criminals reduce their sentences or even walk free from jail.
Our investigation reveals they included Jamaican Lambert Watson, who slaughtered his girlfriend and nine-month-old baby by stabbing them in the neck.
Sir Keir also helped Malawian murderer Francis Kafantayeni, who tied up his two-year-old stepson before burying him alive. And a Ugandan axe killer who slaughtered his girlfriend in front of her children was also spared execution by a law change Sir Keir campaigned for as a founding member at the Death Penalty Project.
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The fiends were saved after countries overturned mandatory death penalties for murder.
Sir Keir was part of a team that launched several bids to scrap the death sentence for serious crimes in countries across Africa and the Caribbean.
His interventions took place from 2002 to 2014 — covering his ascent from junior lawyer to Director of Public Prosecutions. His clients included Watson, who appealed to a British court to end the death sentence for murder in Jamaica.
Lawyers and lags in most Commonwealth nations can appeal to the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a court of final appeal. Sir Keir appeared in front of the JCPC in 2004 as part of a legal bid to quash the mandatory death penalty for murder in Jamaica.
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The Privy Council upheld Watson’s appeal, winning a reprieve for more than 60 prisoners on death row.
Sir Keir also worked in Uganda, where he met “all the men and women on death row” and “assisted with the drafting of legal arguments” in 2005.
Later that year, the country’s top court scrapped laws demanding judges impose the noose on anyone convicted of murder — sparing 417 criminals.
In a Death Penalty Project blogpost, he said of meeting death row felons: “For three hours we sat in the hot sun, talking to the inmates about their case. They sang, they talked and they laughed.
“Having worked on similar cases elsewhere in the world, we thought we were fairly hardened, but no one could have left that prison unmoved.”
He continued to visit Uganda to assist with “re-sentencing issues” in the years after the ruling.
A Labour spokesman yesterday said: “Given the number of miscarriages of justice there have been, Keir Starmer does not support the death penalty.”
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Beasts who slaughtered BBC newsreader and her family
A BID in 2004 by Sir Keir to abolish the mandatory death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago was rejected by the UK’s Privy Council Court.
If he had been successful it would have reprieved Daniel Agard and Lester Pitman, pictured top, after they slit the throats of BBC newsreader Lynette Lithgow-Pearson and her family in 2001.
Brute who knifed his girlfriend and 9-month-old baby to death
SIR Keir represented Lambert Watson for no fee after the fiend appealed to end the mandatory death penalty for murder in Jamaica.
He was shown the black cap in his home country for the 1997 fatal stabbings of his nine-month-old daughter Georgina and his girlfriend Eugenie Samuels, 24.
Lags in most Commonwealth nations can appeal to the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a court of final appeal.
Sir Keir made the case at the JCPC that laws requiring the death sentence prevented judges from considering mitigating factors like upbringing and good behaviour.
He won and Watson was later re-sentenced to life — but became eligible for parole in 2019.
Fiend who tied up his 2-year-old stepson and buried him alive
EVIL Francis Kafantayeni was spared the noose in 2007 for killing his two-year-old stepson by burying him alive.
He coughed to the horrific crime but insisted he was high on Indian hemp at the time.
Sir Keir and others flew to Malawi “multiple times” to assist the monster, including attending his High Court hearing.
After a ruling ordering the brute be re-sentenced, Sir Keir called the judgement “profound”.
The Death Penalty Project he helped found bragged the killer’s lawyers had been assisted by “Keir Starmer QC”, who hailed “the beginning of the end of the mandatory death penalty in Africa”. The campaign later got funding from Tony Blair’s Labour government.
Axe murderer who throttled ex-lover in front of her children
BWENGE Patrick was one of 417 monsters granted a reprieve from hanging after Sir Keir Starmer helped overturn Uganda’s laws on mandatory death penalties in 2005.
He murdered girlfriend Nabirye Joyce by setting fire to her house before pushing her inside.
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The fiend then chopped at her head with an axe and strangled her — all while her terrified children looked on.
Patrick was originally sentenced to death in 1999, but under the changes campaigned for by Starmer was re-sentenced to just 19 years in prison in 2009 on account of his “remorse” and “alcohol dependency”.
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