POLOKWANE – The Provincial Police Commissioner, General Nneke Ledwaba welcomed the lengthy sentences handed down by the Polokwane High Court to two men found guilty of gender based violence crimes.
Both men appeared on separate dates before the court this week on charges related to murder and rape.
On 30 June the court convicted and sentenced a 30-year-old man to 62 years imprisonment for the rape and murder of two women, aged 78 and 79 . The separate incidents happened in the Maake policing area in 2012 and 2013 and in both incidents, the court found that the accused broke into the houses of the elderly women, raped and then killed them.
In a statement, Police Spokesperson, Brig Motlafela Mojapelo said that both cases were assigned to the investigating officer Col Hanyani Mathebula who is attached to Maake Detectives. “The officer investigated these gruesome cases meticulously, gathering evidence including the circumstantial evidence through the forensic experts, that ensured the perpetrator is sent to jail for a long time.”
The court found the accused guilty for both the rape and murder cases that were committed in 2012 and another combined 32 years imprisonment for the crimes he committed in 2013. This translates into 62 years effective jail term, Mojapleo explained.
On Wednesday, 1 July the same court also sentenced a 29-year-old man to 37 years imprisonment for the rape and murder of a woman at Broekman village outside Senwabarwana in 2018.
The accused, Matome Floyd Seliti was arrested in April 2018 for the murder of 24-year-old Clara Machaka, his girlfriend at the time. During the incident he raped and stabbed her with a sharp object and then buried her body in a shallow grave nearby.
The court found Seliti found guilty and he was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment for murder, 11 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances and additional two years imprisonment for defeating the course of justice, said Mojapelo.
He was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.
Ledwaba added that these sentences should send a clear and strong message to all perpetrators that the police are more than determined to remove from society, all those who commit similar acts of gender based violence.
