Three people convicted, of running an elaborate insurance fraud, have to wait a total of seven months before their sentences are handed down.
|||Durban - A businesswoman and her two accomplices, who were convicted of running an elaborate insurance fraud enterprise involving murder, have had another four months added to the five months they have waited for sentencing to be handed down.
Maryanne Dimba, Linda Brenda Mdluli and Sibusiso Buthelezi, who were convicted in February for their involvement in a complex two-year scam in which they used lost or stolen IDs to claim insurance policies, will only be sentenced at the end of the year.
Arguments in mitigation of sentence with respect to Dimba, the mastermind of the enterprise, ground to a halt on Wednesday when her attorney, Jayshree Juglal, informed presiding Durban High Court Judge Fikile Mokgohloa that pre-sentencing reports had not been completed.
Dimba was convicted on one count of managing the operations and activities of the enterprise - she initiated the policies, acquired the bodies and submitted the claims.
In mitigation of sentence, Juglal said the crimes for which Dimba had been convicted started soon after the father of her only child committed suicide.
The death of her daughter’s father, referred to only as “Musa”, in 2005, had had a huge impact on Dimba, who was admitted to hospital for depression, Juglal said.
The court heard that the daughter, Nqobile, had been living with her father when he died. “Dimba was financially dependent on Musa and couldn’t survive on her own,” Juglal said.
Juglal told the court that the prison conditions and side effects of her medication were taking a toll on Dimba, who had been referred to the prison psychiatrist.
Juglal’s address was cut short when it emerged that the probation officer’s report, which she was instructed to obtain, had not been received.
Juglal, who had been instructed by Dimba to obtain the report months ago, tried to shift the blame on to the State.
State advocate Nadira Moosa said the reports were requested by the defence, so it was not the State’s responsibility to obtain the reports.
The trio, who had faced eight counts of murder (the alternative was conspiracy to commit murder), for allegedly killing unidentified people before passing them off as the insured, were each convicted on only one count of murder.
The three were arrested in July 2008 after police had linked them to eight bodies of people who had been murdered or had died in car accidents.
On Wednesday, Mokgohloa accused the defence of delaying the matter.
Counsel for Mdluli and Buthelezi told the court that their clients did not require the probation officer’s report.
Sentence is expected to be handed down in November.
rizwana.umar@inl.co.za
Daily News