![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/12/DSCF0790_55905.jpg)
Colonel André Laing and his dedicated team’s dogged police work has led to the conviction of six murderers.
On 8 February this year four illegal miners, from Lesotho, were captured by a rival faction, also from Lesotho, and taken to a mine dump near Matholesville where they were stripped naked, tied up, tortured over a long period and then burnt. Their bodies were thrown into a mine shaft and covered with sand.
In the Palm Ridge Court presiding Judge Strydom found it was premeditated murder and the aggravating circumstances weighed heavy in the case. Strydom found Laing and Constable Zwele Fothoi to be reliable witnesses who made a good impression on the court.
Five of the suspects received sentences of life imprisonment while the sixth received a sentence of 18 years in prison.
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