12 years for racist killers

Two Pretoria men who gruesomely murdered a man and injured two others in a racist attack have been sentenced to 12 years’ effective imprisonment.

Judge Eben Jordaan today in the High Court in Pretoria sentenced Sampie Diedericks, 36, of Zandfontein and his friend Louis Coetser, 37, of Silverton to 12 years’ imprisonment for the 2014 murder of Nndawakhulu Charles Magoro.

They were sentenced to a further two years’ and six months’ imprisonment for assaulting Herbert Nevhutanda and Thomas Rampala, but the sentences will run concurrently with the murder sentence.

Magoro, an agricultural officer who had two young children, sustained a severe fracture of his forehead when the accused repeatedly punched and kicked him, slammed his head and private parts against a traffic sign pole and hit him on the head with a large rock. He died in hospital a month later.

The other victims were kicked, hit, pushed and punched, and the accused threatened to shoot one of them.

Judge Jordaan said the crimes were, in his view, race-driven. Magoro and the other victims were innocent persons who found themselves next to the Old Moloto road at the critical stage. Magoro was on his way to fetch a cellphone that he had forgotten, but got lost.

He stopped when Coetser flicked his lights at him, whereafter he and the other men were attacked. Some of the witnesses heard the word “k…r” and “foreigners” being used.

Judge Jordaan said although the murder had not been planned, the accused – both first-time offenders and family men who played a productive role in society until then – had acted totally irrationally and like barbarians that night.

There must have been some sort of trigger, but the accused did not tell the court what really happened and falsely claimed they had defended themselves against a hijacking after stopping because there were rocks in the road.

The two were at a bar before the incident, and alcohol must have played a far larger role than they admitted, he added.

The judge said the accused’s children would be deprived of their presence and care while they were in jail, but Magoro’s two children were permanently robbed of their father’s care, and his death could not be reversed.

Magoro’s wife Esther said she was happy about the sentence, but did not have good feelings towards the accused.

Her brother-in-law Robert Rasilingwani said the family accepted the murder was not planned, although it was race-driven, but they did not hate the accused.

He said Esther had a light stroke after her husband’s murder and now had high blood pressure. Her two children were terribly affected by their father’s death, and especially the eldest child’s marks at school had deteriorated.

He described his brother-in-law, who was a Venda prince, as a jolly man who had a lot of friends and always made the people around him laugh.

//

For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.