NO LAST MEAL FOR DAVID

MBABANE – David Simelane and three other men on death row cannot enjoy their last meal because government has not yet taken a clear position regarding the death penalty.

A condemned prisoner’s last meal is a universally practised customary ritual preceding execution.
This privilege, which is also practised in countries like United States of America, would have seen Simelane, Richard Mabaso (2002), Mciniseli Jomo Simelane (2012) and Mandla Maphalala (1998) making orders for the best food they would like to eat before they were executed.

The death row prisoners, using this privilege which the Government of Swaziland provided in the 1980s, can even make orders for pizza and ribs.
Should government eventually decide to hang them; these three men, currently confined to different solitary cells, reserve the right to eat well.
However, alcohol is usually discouraged.

In the state of Texas, USA, the last meal requests was only abolished in September 2011, after condemned prisoner Lawrence Russell Brewer played a prank on government by requesting a huge last meal and did not eat any of it, saying he was not hungry.
Brewer, who was executed by lethal injection for killing James Byrd, made an order for about 30 different kinds of food, which were cooked and served to him. 

In the meantime, Simelane, Mabaso and Maphalala are on standard diet in Swaziland. They eat what all other inmates eat.
Assistant Commissioner Bongani Khumalo, the Public Relations Officer of His Majesty’s Correctional Services (HMCS), confirmed that there was a provision for the last meal but it could not be offered now because the country had never executed any person since 1983.

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