Businessman gets 8 years for assaulting a ‘thief’

Tzaneen businessman Ntau Letebele has been jailed for eight years after kidnapping and brutally assaulting a man he accused of being a thief.

Letebele was also, at one time, the head of the provincial department of roads. The sentencing was a sequel to an incident on December 28, 2014 where Letebele, 47, and his son, Neo, 28, kidnapped three men after accusing them of stealing from their shop.

Letebele allegedly tied the suspects to a tree on his farm and assaulted them for days.

Then he locked the men in a storeroom at a bottle store in Sekororo near Hoedspruit. The next day, passers-by heard screams for help from the men and rushed to help.

When the storeroom was opened, one of the three men, who had been severely assaulted, was found dead.

The survivors were taken to hospital and police later arrested Letebele. Letebele’s son, Neo, was sentenced to an effective five years’ imprisonment for kidnapping. Letebele appealed the sentence and was released on bail.

Shortly after he was released, the businessman posted pictures on his Facebook page of him and his cousins sipping expensive whisky.