Killer to hang
YOU shall hang by your neck until you die. This is what a judge told serial rapist and killer David Simelane.
"You have robbed dozens of children of the natural right of a nurturing and loving hand of a mother when you ruthlessly committed your crimes."
Simelane killed at least 28 Swazi women during a reign of terror that stretched four years.
The women were killed in Swaziland between 1998 and 2001.
The only extenuating circumstance Swaziland's most notorious serial killer could put before the high court was that his actions were motivated by anger and an undying desire for revenge against women.
Simelane was sentenced to death on Friday after being found guilty on 28 counts of murder.
In sentencing the killer, Judge Jacobus Annandale said: "Never before has it been the duty of this court to convict one person for so many counts of premeditated murder.
"You shall hang by your neck until you die, may God have mercy on your soul," Annandale said.
Simelane confessed to Swazi police when he said: "I killed the people out of revenge. I was convicted for a rape I did not commit. I was vengeful."
His attorney, Mduduzi Mabila, added: "He feels that society made him suffer. By society I refer to the courts as they act on behalf of society."
Public prosecutor Mumcy Dlamini reminded the court that Simelane had 18 previous convictions of housebreaking, robbery and rape, the latest of which he was convicted of in 1993.
"Shortly after his release Simelane started committing crimes again. This time murders," Dlamini said.
Records show that Simelane started his criminal activities in 1977. In 2001 he was charged with 43 counts of murder of 34 women and infants.
He used the classic psychopath lure of a job opportunity that he knew of or he was offering.
Annandale lambasted the cheering of his sentence by people in the court court, describing the behaviour as "deplorable".
The man who brought an end to Simelane's reign of terror, investigating officer Khethokwakhe Ndlangamandla, retired from the Swaziland police force on December 30 2008.
He died at the age of 62 in a car accident on May 21 last year.