Sandra Smith ( – 2 June 1989) was a South African woman condemned to death by hanging in 1986, alongside her boyfriend, Yassiem Harris, for the murder of 16-year-old Jermaine Abrahams during a robbery. She was the last known woman executed in the country. In November 1989, president

F W de Klerk Frederik Willem de Klerk ( , ; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as the seventh and final state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president alongside Thabo Mbeki under Preside ...

ordered a nationwide moratorium, stopping executions until further notice. In ''

S v Makwanyane ''S v Makwanyane and Another'' (CCT 3/94) was a landmark 1995 judgment of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. It established that capital punishment was inconsistent with the commitment to human rights expressed in the Interim Constituti ...

'' in 1995, the

Constitutional Court of South Africa The Constitutional Court of South Africa is the supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction. The Court was first establ ...

declared that capital punishment be abolished, being incompatible with the provisional constitution of 1993.

References

1965 births 1989 deaths 20th-century executions by South Africa Executed South African women People convicted of murder by South Africa People executed by South Africa by hanging {{SouthAfrica-bio-stub South African female murderers South African murderers of children South African people executed for murder