The Pietermaritzburg High Court has dismissed the appeal of a man sentenced to life imprisonment for raping and strangling to death a 59-year-old woman from Ntabamhlophe in September 2014.

The Estcourt Regional Court initially sentenced Menzi Emmanuel Mondli Dlamini to eight years for housebreaking with intent to rape and life imprisonment for both rape and murder. Dlamini appealed these life sentences, arguing that the Magistrate’s Court had erred by not considering his personal circumstances and potential for rehabilitation.

However, High Court Judge S Mngadi and Judge Robin Mossop SC disagreed. They noted that DNA evidence, including Dlamini’s blood on a cloth near the victim’s bed and his semen found on the victim, irrefutably linked him to the crimes. These findings were not disputed during the trial.

Judge Mossop dismissed the relevance of Dlamini’s age (33 at the time of sentencing) in predicting future re-offending, stating: “Age does not automatically bring wisdom and obeisance to the law and is therefore not a reliable predictor.”

He highlighted Dlamini’s previous convictions: an eight-month imprisonment suspended sentence for robbery in 2008 and a five-year imprisonment suspended sentence for housebreaking in 2009.

“None of these exposures to the criminal justice system seems to have caused Dlamini to reflect on his conduct and to mend his ways. There is evidence of a trend in his behaviour,” Judge Mossop SC said.

The judges found no compelling circumstances to justify a deviation from the imposed sentences, despite Dlamini’s claim of having three children. They also rejected the argument by Dlamini’s lawyer, B Mbatha from Legal Aid, that the sentences were “grossly inappropriate and induced a sense of shock”.

Judge Mossop emphasised the victim’s dehumanisation.

“I am more certain of this when I consider that the appellant (Dlamini) treated the victim with utter disrespect and discarded her body, partially clad, out in the open as if she did not matter, and as if she was a piece of disposable refuse. She was not a piece of refuse but was a human being,” he concluded.

“The sentences accordingly do not induce in me a sense of shock.” 

The judge also described the inherently terrifying nature of death by strangulation, where an attacker “literally employs a hands-on attack to deprive his victim of life by robbing her of air, then her consciousness, and then her life”.

The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za

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