By Everson Luhanga
Two women who pretended to be sex workers and lured a 38-year-old man to his death four years ago were sentenced in the Pretoria High Court on Monday.
Lebogang Tshabalala, 29, and Everjoy Sibanda, 22, who are both pregnant now, were sentenced alongside their co-accused, Lucky Vincent Motholo, Kagiso Alfred Leleme Mathlabe and Kamogelo Modise.
National Prosecuting Authority Lumka Mahanjana said the two women, Tshabalala and Sibanda, were standing on a street in Bokfontein near a Sasol garage in Daman, Cape Town, pretending to be prostitutes soliciting potential clients, while the three men were in the nearby bushes.
“The deceased, who was coming from work, was dropped off by a car next to where the two were standing. He asked them what they were doing and they told him that they were prostitutes. The deceased then told them to wait, while he went to withdraw money from the Sasol garage,” said Mahanjana.
Mahanjana said after the deceased withdrew R900 and bought a few groceries, he returned to the two women for their services. They went to the bushes where they were met by the three men.
The three men then tied his hands, assaulted him, and demanded his PIN code. The two women went back to the garage to withdraw money, but the attempts failed because the deceased had given them the wrong pin.
Mahanjana said the following day after the mother of the deceased could not get hold of him, she opened a missing persons case at the police station.
After investigations by Saps, the partially decomposed body of the deceased was found in the bushes.
The security guards at the Sasol garage alerted the police of the Avanza car they saw on the night of the incident. After investigations, four of the conspirators were arrested on 19 December 2020 and Modise was arrested in February 2022.
In court, only Motholo pleaded guilty.
The two women asked the court to consider the fact that they were pregnant when imposing a sentence.
The prosecutor Advocate Salome Scheepers told the court that the Correctional Services Act does have provisions for pregnant women and has facilities to cater for such. She then asked the court not to deviate from the prescribed minimum sentence.
“When handing down the sentence the judge said murder is a serious offence, no amount of sentence will bring back the life of the deceased. Therefore, she found no substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from imprisonment,” she said.
The women were sentenced to 15 years of direct imprisonment each, for robbery with aggravating circumstances, the four were also sentenced to three years each for kidnapping.
Pictured above: Police lights.
Image source: File
