Convicted wife-killer Jason Rohde granted leave to appeal sentence

Convicted wife killer Jason Rohde has been granted leave to appeal his conviction for the murder of his wife, Susan, by the Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday.

Rohde was sentenced to 20 years in February for killing his wife and defeating the ends of justice by claiming she may have killed herself after finding out about his affair with a coworker at the Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch almost three years ago.

Timeslive reports that Rohde’s application for leave to appeal was granted on Tuesday following an application by his defence.

On February 20, both parties, defence advocate Graham van der Spuy and state prosecutor Louis van Niekerk, presented their final arguments.

Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe was calm and measured as she read out her reasoning for sentencing Rohde, for the murder of his wife Susan.

Calling Rohde “selfish and self-serving”, Salie-Hlophe listed the damage that the death of Susan had done to Rohde’s own children and described her as being a caring person who clearly loved her family before handing down a sentence of effectively 20 years imprisonment.

Rohde was arrested shortly after the body of Susan was found on July 24, 2016, with an electric cord wrapped around her neck, hanging from a hook behind the bathroom door of the room the couple shared at the Spier Wine Estate Hotel in Stellenbosch.

In November last year, Western Cape High Court Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe found Rohde guilty of murder and obstructing the ends of justice by staging her suicide.

On February 18, the sentencing proceedings of Rohde resumed after the trial adjourned on December 6.

(Compiled by Gopolang Moloko, additional reporting by ANA)

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