An Eastern Cape man has succeeded in appealing against the sentences of two murders he committed when he was a teenager.
Sithembiso Majesi, 22, approached the Grahamstown High Court for appeal after he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in the Port Elizabeth Regional Court.
Between May 2007 and March 2008, at 15, Majesi committed two murders.
In 2007, he murdered his 18-year-old girlfriend after seeing her with a man with whom he had heard she was in a relationship with.
She died of multiple stab wounds in the neck, chest and lower abdomen. In his guilty plea he said he had been drinking the night of the murder.
He testified that he did not know where on the body or how many stab wounds she sustained.
In 2008, he stabbed and killed a 59-year-old woman in a house he had broken into. The woman was stabbed in the chest, left arm and inner thigh with a screw driver.
Both victims were found in a semi-naked state.
The magistrate presiding over the trial found that due to Majesi’s age, the prescribed minimum sentences did not apply.
The sitting magistrate then concluded that a lengthy imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence and sentenced him to 13 years consecutively on each count of murder for an effective 26 years.
Majesi’s appeal was anchored on the fact that the sentence was too severe to be imposed on a child and not in line of the provisions of the constitution.
The state conceded the sentences should run concurrently.
Judge Glenn Goosen said Majesi was clearly a danger to society.
“In our view, an effective sentence of 20 years imprisonment would be an appropriate sentence since it would protect the community,” Goosen said in his judgment.
Majesi has been in custody since 2008 and six years have already been shaved off his sentence. — siyab@dispatch.co.za
Court overturns 26-year jail term for double murder
Sithembiso Majesi, 22, approached the Grahamstown High Court for appeal after he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in the Port Elizabeth Regional Court.
Between May 2007 and March 2008, at 15, Majesi committed two murders.
In 2007, he murdered his 18-year-old girlfriend after seeing her with a man with whom he had heard she was in a relationship with.
She died of multiple stab wounds in the neck, chest and lower abdomen. In his guilty plea he said he had been drinking the night of the murder.
He testified that he did not know where on the body or how many stab wounds she sustained.
In 2008, he stabbed and killed a 59-year-old woman in a house he had broken into. The woman was stabbed in the chest, left arm and inner thigh with a screw driver.
Both victims were found in a semi-naked state.
The magistrate presiding over the trial found that due to Majesi’s age, the prescribed minimum sentences did not apply.
The sitting magistrate then concluded that a lengthy imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence and sentenced him to 13 years consecutively on each count of murder for an effective 26 years.
Majesi’s appeal was anchored on the fact that the sentence was too severe to be imposed on a child and not in line of the provisions of the constitution.
The state conceded the sentences should run concurrently.
Judge Glenn Goosen said Majesi was clearly a danger to society.
“In our view, an effective sentence of 20 years imprisonment would be an appropriate sentence since it would protect the community,” Goosen said in his judgment.
Majesi has been in custody since 2008 and six years have already been shaved off his sentence. — siyab@dispatch.co.za
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