Three Grade 12 pupils who fatally stabbed a man to supplement their items for a school function were jailed for 22 years.
|||Pietermaritzburg - Three Grade 12 school pupils who admitted to fatally stabbing a man to supplement their items for a school function were jailed for in effect 22 years each by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday.
Lindani Mhlongo, 23, Mzwandile Gumede, 19, and Mphikilele Gumede, 20, of KwaMbonambi, on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast, said they attacked and robbed Lucky Khumalo after he alighted from a taxi on August 30.
It was a Friday and they possibly thought he was taking home money and parcels, said Judge Anton van Zyl.
The court heard that they followed him and attacked him in a secluded spot. They left him wounded, but he later died. They took his cellphone, cash and clothes.
Each pupil had an Okapi knife, which they said was for their protection as it was a dangerous area.
They later admitted that they each gained less than R100 from the crime.
Van Zyl found that it was a brutal, unnecessary killing as the pupils were strapping young males who could easily have subdued the middle-aged Khumalo and taken his money and possessions.
However, he found substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from the prescribed life sentence for a gang murder: they were young, had pleaded guilty, were first offenders and could be suitable candidates for rehabilitation.
He sentenced each to 20 years' imprisonment for the murder.
He found no reasons to deviate from the prescribed minimum sentence of 15 years' for the aggravated robbery. He ordered that 13 years of this sentence run concurrently with the murder term.
Sapa