Death penalty available in Swaziland, but no plans to use it, Justice Minister says

The Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs in Swaziland / eSwatini Pholile Shakantu said the kingdom was not ready to use the death penalty, even though it remained lawful to do so.

Shakantu was speaking at a portfolio committee at the Swaziland Senate. 

There has been confusion over the use of the death penalty for many year. Section 15 of the Swaziland Constitution that came into effect in 2006 allows for the death penalty but states it is not be mandatory. The last execution in Swaziland was in 1983.

In 2016 Swaziland voted at the United Nations on a global suspension of executions but made no attempt back home to ban the death penalty.

The Swazi Observer reported on Monday (11 March 2019) that Shakantu, speaking at the Swazi Senate, said the kingdom did not embrace the death penalty in practice.

Shakantu said the kingdom had not made any move towards abolition as it was up to Parliament to amend laws that included the death penalty. 

As recently as 2012 an advert was placed in local media seeking a hangman. No suitable applications were received, the then Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze told parliament.

There are believed to be at least three people on ‘death row’ in jail awaiting execution, including David Simelane who was convicted in 2011 of killing 28 women.

See also

Swazi killer sentenced to hang

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/04/swazi-killer-sentenced-to-hang.html

 

Swaziland wants to appoint hangman

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/01/swaziland-wants-to-appoint-hangman.html

 

Death penalty test for human rights

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/death-penalty-test-for-human-rights.html

SWAZILAND WANTS TO APPOINT HANGMAN

King Mswati III’s Swaziland government is in search of a hangman so prisoners presently on death row may be executed.

The Swazi Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze said a job vacancy advert would be placed as soon as possible.

Gamedze told the Weekend Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, an advert had been placed last year but no suitable applicants had put their name forward. 

The Observer reported that taxpayers, who they did not name, had complained about the cost of keeping death-row inmates in prison.  

Gamedze said his ministry was waiting for permission to place the hangman’s advert again. Immediately they got the instruction, they would definitely re-advertise the post, the Observer reported him saying.

The Observer said, ‘Some of the concerned members of the public’ (again, who they did not name) wanted to see David Simelane, who had been sentenced to death last year (2012) for killing 28 people, executed. At least five other people are thought to be waiting execution in Swaziland.

The Observer said families to victims (who they did not name) ‘who were murdered by the convicts … said they were comforted when the courts issued the [death] sentences but it pained them to see that the convicts were still enjoying full benefits for inmates at the correctional institutions’.

In October 2011, Swaziland was heavily criticised at the UN Universal Periodic Review  into human rights in the kingdom for continuing to have the death penalty. Gamedze told the UN that although the death penalty existed in Swaziland the last execution had been in 1983. He said this showed that the kingdom was abolitionist in practice. 

See also

DEATH PENALTY TEST FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/death-penalty-test-for-human-rights.html

DEATH PENALTY TEST FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Two more men have been sentenced to hang in Swaziland this past week.

This comes after Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, told a United Nations group that although the kingdom retained the death penalty it was ‘abolitionist in practice’.

The men, both named Simelane, were involved in separate cases before the courts. David Simelane had his conviction for killing 28 women and children over a period of about 10 years upheld by the Supreme Court.  

The other man, Mciniseli Jomo Simelane, was convicted by the Swazi High Court of killing a seven-month-old baby when he set fire to a house. 

The death sentences once again put the spotlight on Swaziland’s human rights record.

In October 2011, Swaziland was heavily criticised at the UN Universal Periodic Review  into human rights in the kingdom for continuing to have the death penalty. Gamedze told the UN that although the death penalty existed in Swaziland the last execution had been in 1983. He said this showed that the kingdom was abolitionist in practice. 

But, in April 2012, Gamedze told the Times of Swaziland the kingdom would not follow the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and abolish the death penalty. Gamedze said for the time being, the kingdom was not ready to accede to the convention. 

He said at the time that David Simelane would not hang, unless the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against the death penalty. Simelane has now lost that appeal.

International anti-capital punishment groups estimate that about seven people are waiting for execution on ‘death row’ in Swaziland. 

Contrary to Gamedze’s assertion that Swaziland is abolitionist, the kingdom has been advertising on and off for years to appoint a hangman. But so far, no one has been given the job.

See also

SWAZILAND ‘CAN’T AFFORD RIGHTS’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/swaziland-cant-afford-rights.html

SWAZI KILLER SENTENCED TO HANG

Swazi serial killer sentenced to hang

AFP

MBABANE — Convicted Swazi serial killer David Simelane was sentenced today (1 April 2011) to death by hanging, after being convicted last week for the death of 28 people, mostly women and children.

Judge Jacobus Annandale had been expected only to hear mitigation from the defence today, but instead he swiftly handed down the death sentence nine days after convicting Simelane.

No executions have been carried out in Swaziland since 1983.

Simelane will appeal both the conviction and the sentence, his court-appointed attorney Mduduzi "Tsotsi" Mabila said, but added that Simelane had been prepared for the worst.

"He said he was ready for anything," Mabila told AFP.

Women's rights groups celebrated the verdict outside court. Mbali Dlamini of the Women's Coalition said the swift sentence had come as a surprise in a case that had dragged over a decade.

"He is not a person that should be let out into society ever, so it is right that he be hung," she told AFP.

Dlamini said the focus should now be on allowing the families of the victim?s closure as they had waited a decade to bury their loved ones. The remains have been held by the state as evidence.

"Now it is about the families -- not David," she said.

Simelane's killing spree is believed to have begun in the late 1990s and lasted until 2001 when families began reporting missing relatives.

Police arrested Simelane in 2001 on a tip-off, and he then led them to the shallow graves of his victims in sites dotted around the country.

A total of 45 bodies, including several pregnant women, were discovered -- most in the woods in Malkerns, outside Swaziland's main city Manzini. He was charged with 34 murders, and convicted of 28.

Police claimed Simelane lured the women with the promise of work. When their bodies were discovered, they were too badly decomposed to determine if they had been raped.