Very little is known about Asia prisoners. We dug a little and found the last meals of 7 death-row prisoners in Asia
The death sentence in Singapore remains one of the harshest in the world. Many humans’ rights groups have came trying to champion their cause against it and left defeated. It will remain here for a long time to come and it is best in anyone’s interests to not challenge our cold laws.
Many of the friends I asked who served as police officers were extremely reluctant to share their stories, unsure whether they would get into trouble for divulging it. Still, we compile the 5 last meals of 5 Asia death-row prisoners.
#1 John Martin Scripps
John Martin Scripps was a English spree killer who murdered three tourists—Gerard Lowe in Singapore, and Sheila and Darin Damude in Thailand—with another three unconfirmed victims. He posed as a tourist when committing the murders, earning the nickname of “the tourist from Hell”.
He requested a pizza and a mug of chocolate.
He was sentenced to death by hanging.
#2 Mona Fandey
Maznah Ismail, better known as Mona Fandey, was a pop singer, witch doctor, and a murderess from Malaysia. She was executed on November 2, 2001 at the age of 45, after being convicted of the murder of a politician, Mazlan Idris, in 1993.
She declined a last meal but was given KFC.
She was sentenced to death by hanging.
#3 Ma Qingxiu
Ma Qingxiu was convicted for drug offenses. She was among a group executed by shooting at Wuhan, in central China. This mass execution was conducted in secret but preceded by a humiliating public trial.
She requested for a bowl of shredded pork rice noodles.
She was sentenced to death by shooting.
#4 Dai Donggui
Dai Donggui was convicted for drug offenses. She was among a group executed by shooting at Wuhan, in central China. This mass execution was conducted in secret but preceded by a humiliating public trial.
She requested for green bean soup and was given McDonald’s food additionally.
She was sentenced to death by shooting.
#5 Ajmal Kasab
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was a Pakistani militant and a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist group, through which he took part in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks in India. Kasab was the only attacker captured alive by police.
He declined a last meal but was given a basket of tomatoes.
He was sentenced to death by hanging.
#6 Otto Adolf Eichmann
Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German Nazi lieutenant colonel and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was charged by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. He was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962.
He declined a meal and opted for a half a bottle of dry Israeli wine.
He was sentenced to death by hanging.
#7 Anonymous Singapore prisoner
The Singapore man requested for anonymity. In the last recent execution, the prisoner was given a final meal. He requested for a glass of milk. The officer who supervised the execution said that milk is the option for a classier death. Any other food would explode out of the body during the hanging – milk is the only one that would stay in the body.
He was sentenced to death by hanging.
Whenever this topic pops up, there would be a lengthy debate on whether prisoners deserve the kindness of a last meal, a choice their victims did not get. In the words of the supervising office I interviewed,
“People are not expected to be humane, but the government is expected to be humane.”
Perhaps our last cruelty to them is showing them kindness, to remind them that they had the luxury of our goodness when all their victims had was the slap of their ruthlessness.
By Nicole Lee
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