State calls for 35 years in jail for serial rapist

A 22-year-old Elliot serial rapist, who started raping women when he was 17, must get an effective 35-years imprisonment, the state argued on Friday.

The knife-wielding Thulani Lamani, raped four women and attempted to rape a fifth between 2015-2018.

In the high court in Makhanda in August, Judge Judith Roberson convicted him of four counts of rape, one count of attempting to rape an eight-month pregnant woman, two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstance and one count of housebreaking with intent to commit rape.

Two of the serial rapist’s victims were teenage girls.

Senior state advocate Nickie Turner, arguing on Friday, said a social worker found in a sentencing report that Lamani had no true remorse or insight into the horror of the crimes he had committed, or their traumatic and devastating effect on his victims.

She said there was a high risk of him reoffending and he would remain a danger to the community, particularly women.

Turner said he was a young offender who had already committed three rapes by the time he was 18 years old. He committed one in 2015, when just 17 years old, and another two a year later.

He had then committed no rapes between 2017-2018 but that was only because he was serving time in prison for an unrelated case of assault with intent to commit grievous bodily home.

“By the time he turned 18 he already fitted the profile of serial rapist and a particularly violent one at that,” Turner said.

Undeterred by a period of imprisonment in 2017, he almost immediately went on to commit another grievous rape.

The rapes were sadistic and he made a point of demeaning his victims.

He was unrepentant and unremorseful, and never took responsibility for his actions or the terrible suffering they had caused.

She said Lamani had made nothing of his first period of imprisonment to improve or rehabilitate himself. Instead he had joined a prison gang and had the tattoos to prove it.

She said he should serve an effective 35 years in jail for his crimes.

Lamani’s lawyer, Templeton Solani, said the court should not impose such a heavy sentence on someone so young.

Judge Judith Roberson said she would sentence Lamani on Monday.

Convicting Lamani earlier in September, Roberson found all the women had been excellent witnesses.

Lamani, on the other hand, had been a “pathetic” witness who changed his version of events materially and repeatedly.

He had been unable to answer questions during cross-examination by Turner and had finally even agreed with Turner that his version did not make sense.

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