Another partner who killed her husband also did not waste the court’s time and pleaded guilty.
Suretha Brits, 31, charged with murdering her hotelier husband Leon, 41, pleaded guilty to murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances in November.
The high court in Upington sentenced Brits to an effective 25 years in jail.
Brits’ body was found floating in a swimming pool at one of the couple’s properties in Pofadder on October 7 2020. He had been stabbed several times. Valuables, including firearms, diamonds and cash, were taken from the premises.
Another case which shocked the nation this year also led to a swift conviction and sentence.
The dismembered body of Nosicelo Mtebeni, 23, a fourth-year LLB student at the University of Fort Hare, was found in a suitcase in East London in August.
Her boyfriend Alutha Pasile, 25, entered a guilty plea at the East London high court in November. He was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.
The court also did not show mercy to a security officer who killed a member of the public, Sibusiso Amos, in Vosloorus in March 2020 when Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officers were enforcing level 5 lockdown regulations.
Siphiwe Ndlovu, a former police officer who was a security guard at the time, was sentenced in the Johannesburg high court in December to 25 years in prison for the murder and five years for each of three counts of attempted murder.
Amos was fatally shot inside his property during an argument with EMPD officers who were chasing patrons from a nearby tavern.
There were also the cases where courts passed heavy sentences on elders who raped their young relatives.
In one such sentence in November, a 63-year-old man from Kwambonambi was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Empangeni regional court after he was convicted of the rape of his 15-year-old granddaughter.
The girl and her mother lived with their extended family at the man’s homestead. He was the girl’s maternal grandfather.
He had raped her four times between 2018 and 2020.
In another case, an 81-year-old man from Balfour in Mpumalanga who raped a six-year-old girl in 2004 was sentenced to a 15-year jail term this month.
Rhino poachers also had the cell doors slammed on them, with the heftiest sentence passed in October in the Mogwase regional court in North West, where Mozambican nationals Arlindo Muhlanga, Adam Hlongwane and Gamula Chauke were sentenced to 35 years each.
They were arrested in 2018 after poaching and dehorning of three white rhino cows in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve.
A few months earlier, in May, the Skukuza regional court sentenced former SANParks ranger Phineas Dinda, and his co-accused to 16 years in jail for rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park in 2019.
Compared to these bloody crimes stealing a pair of leggings worth R798 might seem like small change, but the high court in Pretoria cut Desiree Williams, 57, no slack.
She was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, with the court saying her numerous convictions since 1981 “showed no sentence has rehabilitated or deterred her”.
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Nomia Ndlovu tops the list of notable cases courts finalised ahead of the new year
Courtroom dramas to rival the best any scriptwriter can come up with kept people captivated this year as plots unravelled, and evidence turned out to be the gift that kept on giving.
It also saw the courts hand down a number of heavy sentences for a range of convictions.
One that grabbed attention was that of Nomia Ndlovu, the former policewoman who was in November sentenced to six life terms for a string of murders she orchestrated — spurred on by greed.
The 46-year-old was convicted of planning the murders of her partner and five family members to claim life insurance payouts.
Ndlovu was also found guilty of inciting the murder of her sister, Joyce and her five children, but they survived her murderous intentions.
Her killing spree started in 2012 and ended in 2018, when she was caught after the hitman she hired to burn her sister and children alive in their home in Bushbuckridge tipped off police, setting the wheels in motion for an undercover police sting operation.
While Ndlovu’s case took a few years from her arrest to her conviction, a man who killed his girlfriend and decapitated her in 2019 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 years.
Elhadji Adama Kebe, 33, stabbed Sibongile Zenzile, 28, more than 10 times in the Kempton Park flat they shared on April 25, 2019. He also cut off her head and kept it in their fridge.
Kebe was arrested the next day at a shop run by the couple.
Instead of sentencing him to the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment for this murder, the high court in Johannesburg on May 18 sentenced him to the lesser sentence after finding there were mitigating factors.
These included the fact that Kebe was a first offender, had shown remorse, spent two years in prison awaiting trial, pleaded guilty, and there were prospects for his rehabilitation.
Another partner who killed her husband also did not waste the court’s time and pleaded guilty.
Suretha Brits, 31, charged with murdering her hotelier husband Leon, 41, pleaded guilty to murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances in November.
The high court in Upington sentenced Brits to an effective 25 years in jail.
Brits’ body was found floating in a swimming pool at one of the couple’s properties in Pofadder on October 7 2020. He had been stabbed several times. Valuables, including firearms, diamonds and cash, were taken from the premises.
Another case which shocked the nation this year also led to a swift conviction and sentence.
The dismembered body of Nosicelo Mtebeni, 23, a fourth-year LLB student at the University of Fort Hare, was found in a suitcase in East London in August.
Her boyfriend Alutha Pasile, 25, entered a guilty plea at the East London high court in November. He was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.
The court also did not show mercy to a security officer who killed a member of the public, Sibusiso Amos, in Vosloorus in March 2020 when Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officers were enforcing level 5 lockdown regulations.
Siphiwe Ndlovu, a former police officer who was a security guard at the time, was sentenced in the Johannesburg high court in December to 25 years in prison for the murder and five years for each of three counts of attempted murder.
Amos was fatally shot inside his property during an argument with EMPD officers who were chasing patrons from a nearby tavern.
There were also the cases where courts passed heavy sentences on elders who raped their young relatives.
In one such sentence in November, a 63-year-old man from Kwambonambi was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Empangeni regional court after he was convicted of the rape of his 15-year-old granddaughter.
The girl and her mother lived with their extended family at the man’s homestead. He was the girl’s maternal grandfather.
He had raped her four times between 2018 and 2020.
In another case, an 81-year-old man from Balfour in Mpumalanga who raped a six-year-old girl in 2004 was sentenced to a 15-year jail term this month.
Rhino poachers also had the cell doors slammed on them, with the heftiest sentence passed in October in the Mogwase regional court in North West, where Mozambican nationals Arlindo Muhlanga, Adam Hlongwane and Gamula Chauke were sentenced to 35 years each.
They were arrested in 2018 after poaching and dehorning of three white rhino cows in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve.
A few months earlier, in May, the Skukuza regional court sentenced former SANParks ranger Phineas Dinda, and his co-accused to 16 years in jail for rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park in 2019.
Compared to these bloody crimes stealing a pair of leggings worth R798 might seem like small change, but the high court in Pretoria cut Desiree Williams, 57, no slack.
She was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, with the court saying her numerous convictions since 1981 “showed no sentence has rehabilitated or deterred her”.
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