Man Sent To Jail For Mob Justice
The High Court of South Africa: The Mpumalanga High Court has today convicted and sentenced Line Mfana Mhlongo (36), from Welverdiend Trust in Bushbuckridge to twenty years direct imprisonment for the murder of Ishmail Nyathi (23). Mhlongo was charged along with his four co-accused, who were acquitted due to insufficient evidence on their part. On 03 June 2019, the accused together with his co-perpetrators went into the house of the deceased in Welverdiend, alleging that he stabbed and killed one of the family members of the accused.
They found him on the way and took him to the house of Induna which is in the same vicinity where there was a large group of people and a decision was taken that he must be killed. He was taken to a nearby bush, and Mhlongo gave the deceased a rope to hang himself. The deceased failed to hang himself on three occasions, thereafter the mob pelted him with stones and burnt him alive. The accused was arrested after he was identified as a ringleader by the community.
State Adv. Zwelethu Matu led evidence of two eyewitnesses, who placed to accused at the crime scene. Post mortem report which confirmed that the deceased died of burnt wounds was handed in. Mata addressed the court, that members of the community must not take the law into their own hands. He argued, that the deceased killing was brutal, inhumane, and callous, and therefore the accused deserves severe punishment. Acting Judge K. Shai deviated from the prescribed minimum sentence of life. He took into consideration that the crime was committed in a particular social context, where there are high incidents of vigilantism, motivated by a lack of trust in the criminal justice system the society. He sentenced the accused, to twenty years of direct imprisonment and was declared unfit to possess a firearm.
The NPA welcomes the sentence and emphatically condemns acts of vigilantism in our society, as it promotes lawlessness, said the Director of Public Prosecutions Adv. Nkebe Kanyane.
Issued by
Monica Nyuswa
DPP Mpumalanga
Regional Spokesperson
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