Marike de Klerk’s killer to be freed on parole today

Luyanda Mboniswa, who murdered former SA first lady Marike de Klerk, will be released on parole on Wednesday, 30 August.

Mboniswa was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2003 after breaking into De Klerk’s Dolphin Beach apartment in Table View two years prior. He was working as a security guard at the apartments at the time.

He was found to have strangled de Klerk to death, gripping her neck so forcefully that he broke several bones in her throat and burst a blood vessel in her eye.

The former wife of the late former South African president FW de Klerk was found with several wounds to her head and was believed to have been on her knees when she died.

ALSO READ: Apartheid SA’s last president FW de Klerk has died, aged 85

The Department of Correctional Services confirmed Mboniswa’s release earlier this month, saying he had served the minimum required time behind bars.

Life on parole

He will be released into “a system of community corrections, whereby he is expected to comply with a specific set of parole conditions for the rest of his natural life”.

“He will be assigned a monitoring official to render supervision duties. Normal parole conditions will apply, such as being restricted to his magisterial district. He is also not allowed to have contact with the family of the victim and shall not change his residential address without informing the monitoring official,” said Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo.

‘To forgive would be a difficult thing’

City Press reported De Klerk’s son Jan as saying death would “remain a sad matter” that would be easier to accept than forgive.

“We try to carry on. To forgive would be a difficult thing. I think acceptance would be a better word than forgiveness. One just accepts death.

“You can never approve of what he did. You miss your mother because it’s not like she’s gone due to natural causes or cancer.

“I cannot approve or justify this at all. There is no reason that it was ever necessary to go this far. In any case, there is never any reason,” he said.

Additional reporting by Faizel Patel