FROM 23YRS SENTENCE TO 40YRS FOR BEHEADING WIFE

MBABANE – The Supreme Court’s judgment came as a bolt from the blue for the man who chopped off his wife’s head with an axe while she was sleeping.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court quashed Muzi Khumalo’s sentence of 23 years, which was issued by the High Court on June 22, 2021, and substituted it with life imprisonment of 40 years.
The sentence of 23 years, according to the Supreme Court, was not commensurate with the serious nature of the offence, the dimension of gender-based violence (GBV) and the conduct of the appellant (Khumalo) before, during and after ‘the evil act’. Khumalo killed his wife, Gcinile Mhlanga, with an axe and chopped off her head. He confessed to the murder. Khumalo is said to have accused his wife of being a serial adulteress and he had known her to be unfaithful even before marrying her.

Confession

He stated in the confession that he and his wife attended a Jericho church vigil and returned in the morning to sleep. “Later on that day, I engaged her on the question of her extramarital affairs and we quarrelled. She lay on top of the bed. I then got angry and took an axe and chopped her in the neck as she was fast asleep. Our children were also sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the same house. It was in broad daylight. I then took a pick and a shovel and went a few steps from my home fence where I dug a pit. I went back to the house, collected her body and buried it in the pit and covered it. The time was around 3pm,” the confession read.

Bathed

He also stated that at 5pm, he bathed the children and took them to Manzini, where he secured a room for them at a Lukhele compound. Khumalo said he paid rent for them and left them there. He also confessed that he proceeded to Mahlabatsini to fetch his other belongings, occasionally went home at Ekwendzeni on weekends and also went to work. Khumalo further stated that on a particular Sunday, he arrived at his home just before 10am and he was carrying two sacks, which he had intended to load with plaster sand to take home. “While seated at home thinking, I decided to dig up the deceased and bury her at some other place. Indeed I dug her out at around noon. One Musa Masuku came after I had dug out the corpse and put it in a sack. I explained to Musa that I had killed a dog which had strayed into my house and I had buried it there. I said I had, however, decided to dig it up and rebury it somewhere further away. When Musa departed I covered the pit. I took the corpse and went to the mountain where I removed it from the sack and placed it underneath a tree and returned home,” further read the confession.

Trial

Khumalo appeared before Judge Mzwandile Fakudze for his trial. Judge Fakudze sentenced him to 23 years imprisonment. The judge had found that there were extenuating circumstances in that there was provocation. Khumalo was dissatisfied with the sentence and approached the Supreme Court on appeal. The appeal was heard by Judge Magriet Van Der Walt, sitting with Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala and Judge Sabelo Matsebula. In the judgment, Judge Van Der Walt said the finding of the High Court that this was a crime of passion was factual and could not be revisited on appeal. However, on closer analysis, the potency of this finding was, according to the court, greatly diluted, among other factors, by that Khumalo had that his wife was unfaithful before and after marrying her.

Khumalo told the court that his pleas to his wife fell on deaf ears, ‘yet the appellant elected not only to marry the deceased but to remain in a relationship with her and not to divorce her or to separate from her’. “A continued pattern of infidelity on the part of the deceased, therefore, should have occasioned no new surprise or heartbreak or triggered a blind rage. It again needs to be emphasised that there was no evidence of adultery, or of any reasonable grounds to suspect adultery. There was premeditation in that the appellant lured the deceased to the rural homestead under a false pretext and was intent on forcing the issue of his discontent with her alleged infidelity, which involved a particular thought process. This further demonstrates that the murder was well planned,” said Judge Van Der Walt. The judge said the evidence manifested not only premeditation but also dolus directus (direct intention).
Judge Van Der Walt stated that there was no hesitation and the degree of violence, which Khumalo meted out on his wife, was egregious, excessive and exhibited horrifying aggression.
“Secondly, insufficient weight had been attached to the subsequent conduct of the appellant, who exerted his control over his victim antemortem, perimortem and post-mortem:

Fatal

“Removing the deceased’s head after the fatal blow was deliberate, unnecessary and particularly gruesome. Callously disposing of her remains as if she were a dead dog and attempting to conceal not only her death but her identity, renders one at a loss for words; this was a continuous and relentless desecration of a dead person by her callous murderer. “He took the opportunity to malign her by alleging that she was with another man, fully knowing that this imputation of her character was false. The purported remorse on the part of the appellant is gainsaid by, inter alia, the purported expression of remorse appears to have been an afterthought produced only at the stage of the trial,” Judge Van Der Walt said in the judgment. The court mentioned that Khumalo was not responsible for the discovery of his wife’s remains. The judge said Khumalo was content to let the body of his wife and mother of his children lie and rot in the open, where other animals could freely feed on it, mutilate and further scatter her remains. “Had it not be for the chance discovery by an accidental passer-by, the gory fate and cruel end of life of the deceased would not have been known but instead, the community may have continued to believe the appellant that the deceased had abandoned her children and was with another man.

Unfaithful

“The appellant had ensured that the deceased could not speak up in her defence against the allegations of unfaithful conduct, by silencing her forever.” The Supreme Court found that there were no extenuating circumstances. Judge Van Der Walt said the cunning pattern of behaviour before and after the fact belay any suggestion of low intelligence and a rural background was not an excuse for savagery. The judge said this type of murder was the epitome of domestic violence and of violence of men against women, which had become endemic in society.
“In these circumstances, one is not dealing with a sentence as to satisfy the public that the Court has taken adequate measures within the law to protect them from serious offenders. One is dealing with gender-based and domestic violence, which often is meted out behind closed doors or otherwise away from the public eye.

Justice

“This personal menace is no less demanding of justice than a public menace and because of the underlying motif of gratuitous, oppressive and/or retributive violence with an attendant culture of victims being too frightened of their abusers to approach the authorities and as such, is deserving of very severe sentences,” reads the judgment further. The court held that an increase of the sentence on appeal was justified and that an appropriate sentence was one of life imprisonment of 40 years. Khumalo was represented by Nosisa Hlophe of Mongi Nsibande and Partners while Crown Counsel Brian Ngwenya appeared for the Crown.

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