The Provincial Commissioner of the South African Police Service in Mpumalanga, Lieutenant General Mondli Zuma appreciated the good work done by the collective in the form of the police, prosecution as well as the judiciary.
He said that sentences meted out to suspects serve as a mitigating factor to potential criminals and criminality. General Zuma went on to applaud the patriotic stance taken by law abiding citizens, who in these difficult times manage to lift up their heads and feed the police with tangible information that leads to the successful prosecution of offenders.
The praise by the Lt General spirals from a number of convictions which confirms the turnaround strategy of stamping the authority of the state.
General Zuma has observed with elation how the Circuit of the North Gauteng High Court sitting at Mkobola and Balfour meted hefty sentences to two offenders. The sentencing follows after two accused persons were found guilty on charges of kidnapping, murder, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) involving a total of five victims in two separate incidents.
In the first incident, on 24 July 2018, the high court sitting at Mkobola sentenced 37 year old Dion Chunku to life imprisonment for murder and five years’ imprisonment for kidnapping. The court heard how the accused assaulted and kidnapped 30 year old Sekutu Mxolisi on allegations that he broke into his room and stole his belongings in February 2015.
According to information at police disposal, the accused was renting a room at the victim’s place when someone broke in and stole his possessions.
He went on a man hunt looking for Sekutu and found him, he then put together a group of men who belonged to a soccer team he trained and they assaulted the victim. When they had finished assaulting him, they put him in the boot of Chunku’s vehicle and drove around with him for more than two hours.
Meanwhile, the victim suffocated and eventually died. The accused and his accomplices, who later turned state witnesses, went to dump Sekutu’ s body at a local dumping site in Mhluzi, after they burnt and tried to get rid of it. Realising that there were people in the area, they left the body and tried to convince those who witnessed this ordeal not to speak of the incident by bribing them with money.
Chunku was arrested on 17 February 2015, and has been attending court ever since, hence the sentencing.
In the second incident, on 13 July 2018, the court sitting at Balfour sentenced 47 year old Dai Fleetline Makhubu to an effective 22 years’ in prison for an incident which took place in November 2016.
The court heard how Makhubu fought with the wife of his late brother at their parental home. He told his sister in law that he was going to finish whatever business that was taking place in his father’s house.
The accused then left the premises and came back again, this time with a firearm. He fatally shot his brother, proceeded to shoot his brother’s wife as well as two tenants. The three victims survived, while his brother died at the scene.
The accused was found guilty on seven counts of offences, count 1: assault (GBH), count 2: murder, count 3, 4 and 5: attempted murder, count 6: unlawful possession of a firearm, and count 7: unlawful possession of ammunition.
He was then sentenced to 22 years imprisonment for murder, 10 years for each attempted murder, and 5 years for unlawful possession of a firearm, 02 years for unlawful possession of ammunition and 6 months for assault (GBH), all the sentences will run concurrently.
The Provincial Commissioner appealed to the community to continue working together with the police in fighting crime so that the community should not only be safe, but feel safe as well.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
