NOTHING LESS THAN 40-YEARS FOR MURDER

MBABANE – The landscape has changed drastically for murder convicts such that they now look forward to their sentencing with ominous trepidation.

This is because the sentencing trend at the High Court is now such that murder convicts get nothing less than 40 years, unless the circumstances suggest otherwise. This means that the times of murder convicts ‘getting away with murder’ are a thing of the past. Judges usually cite a judgment of the Supreme Court in which Petros Khumalo, who had been sentenced to 23 years by the High Court and appealed the sentenced and it was revised to 40 years imprisonment by the apex court.

Guidance

In one of the judgments, Judge Bonginkhosi Magagula said he took guidance from the Supreme Court’s decision in Rex vs Petros Khumalo, which has set a new precedent regarding the range of sentences. The judge went on to sentence Colani Ntjwele Kunene to 40 years imprisonment for murder.
The latest convict to be sentenced to 40 years imprisonment is Mfanasibili Msimango, who was found guilty of killing his brother, Vusi, at their parental home situated at Lugongolweni in the Lubombo Region, over missing dagga.

Mfanasibili suspected that Vusi had stolen his dagga, which was supposedly in a bedroom in the main house of the homestead. Judge Nkosinathi Maseko sentenced Mfanasibili to 40 years behind bars and backdated the sentence to June 8, 2023. Judge Maseko said there was no doubt that Mfanasibili (44) had imbibed alcoholic beverages between 11pm and 1am on February 16, 2022. The court made a finding of legal intention to kill his brother, it was undisputable, according to the court, that he had consumed a lot of alcoholic drinks leading to the murder. Judge Maseko said extenuating circumstances, therefore, existed, wowing to his consumption of liquor.

Judge Maseko said he found that there were compelling circumstances that called for a sentence that fits the offence as well the offender. He said the court considered the prevalence of murder cases in the country and the statistics were alarmingly high ‘and unless the courts issue deterrent sentences, people will continue to perpetuate murders without any worry or regard of repercussions’. Judge Maseko said the courts have a duty to protect members of society from people who easily and often times, without provocation, commit murders.

Prohibited

In this case, Judge Maseko said Mfanasibili was the elder brother, and even if the family dealt in dagga, which is prohibited in the kingdom, he had no right to assault his brother with a crowbar and in the manner he did. According to Judge Maseko, the excuse of dealing in dagga by Mfanasibili did not amount to provocation because the whole transaction was, in law, illegal. The judge also stated that the fact that Mfanasibili killed his brother because he had stolen his dagga in a five-litre container was arrogant and the court rejected it with the contempt it deserves.

“People like the accused who deal in dagga, which they know very well to be prohibited in this country, who go about killing other people whom they suspect of having stolen their dagga or because of competition or territory rivalry, must know that if they are convicted of killing other people in those unlawful circumstances, will face the full might of the law and if convicted must brace themselves for deterrent imprisonment sentences for their offences,” said Judge Maseko

The judge also told Mfanasibili that his actions had destroyed his family. “Your unlawful actions have destroyed your family and in particular, your mother whom you know is very sickly. Your mother and brother have lost two family members in yourself because of the lengthy term of imprisonment as well as your deceased brother, Vusi,” said Judge Maseko when sentencing Mfanasibili.

In the Supreme Court judgment, where court quashed Khumalo’s High Court 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 was not commensurate with the serious nature of the offence, the dimension of gender-based violence and his conduct before, during and after ‘the evil act’.

Confessed

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 prior to marrying her. He stated in the confession that he and his wife attended a Jericho church vigil overnight and returned in the morning to sleep.

“Later on that day, I engaged her on the question of her extra-marital affairs and we quarrelled. She lay on top of the bed. I then got angry and took an axe and chopped her on 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 day light. “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. Supreme Court Judge Magriet Van Der Walt stated that there was no hesitation and the degree of violence, which Khumalo meted on his wife, was egregious, excessive and exhibited horrifying aggression.

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