IN THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
(WESTERN CAPE HIGH COURT CAPE TOWN)

	20 APRIL 2006 
In the matter between:

and

SENTENCE
ZONDI A J
Mr Naphakade, by sentencing you I have to take in into account your personal circumstances, the nature of the offence and the interest of the community.
As far as your personal circumstances are concerned, it was indicated that you are a first offender, that you were born in Oktober 1981 and you are not married, but you have two daughters who are three and one year’s respectfully. At the time of your arrest, you were staying with your parents who were looking after you, as you were unemployed. At school you past standerd ten and since you left school you have done some courses on security management, first aid and English.
This briefly summarizes your personal circumstances.
As far as the nature of the offence is concerned, is there no doubt about the seriousness thereof. You have be6n convicted of murder, attempted murder and unlawful: possession of firearms and ammunition. There was . evidence that these offenses took place in the cause of robbery and a firearm was used in committing these atrocipus offences.: Murder is a serious offence as it involve the lost of human-life which cannot be replaced. It seems to me that murder has become prevalent in these days and in moist cases illegal firearms is used in committing it.. It is for these reasons that the legislator has seen it fit to set a minimum sentence in order to deal squarely with serious offences such as. murder. This legislation prescribes minimum sentences for these offences, in other word the minimum sentence legislations sets out a minimum sentence to be imposed on a persone convicted of murder. The charges you are facing are subjected to Section 51 of Act 105 of 1997 (The Minimum Sentence Legislation). I shall return to this aspect later and I will deal more thoroughly with it.
Mr April, who gave evidence in this matter, testified on how you shot him and the deceased after instructing them to Me on the ground. They covered their faces while other, who was with you, removed various goods from the owner of the house, who he had visited. You shot them at a close range and you shot the deceased in the head. The postmortem relating to the injuries sustained by the deceased was handed in as EXHIBIT D and upon examination the deceased was found to have four gunshot wounds to the head. The gunshot: wounds trekked through the brain. Mr April was also shot four times and sustained bodily injuries.

Now the question is whether there are any substantial and compelling circumstances in this matter that would justify me giving you a sentence less than the prescribed minimum  sentence. I have fully investigated this and unfortunately I could not find any substantial and compelling circumstances in your favor. The only thing is that you have been in prison since January 2004, other than that there is nothing to indicate why these offences were committed and whether there was any need on your part to do so. There was ...(indistinct) in the fact that your defense was an alibi, in other words you were saying you had no knowledge of the allegations against you. In other words there is no indication that either alcohol or drug abuse was involved in this matter. Or that the deceased had done something to provoke you - there is nothing.
In the circumstances I have no alternative, but to sentence you to life imprisonment for murder. Ten (10) years for attempted murder. Count four and five relating to unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition will be taken together for the purposes of sentence and in respect of counts four and five you are accordingly sentenced to five (5) years imprisonment. It is further ordered that sentences in respect of count two, that is attempted murder, four and five, that is unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, will run concurrently with the life imprisonment sentence in respect of count one. And you are declared unfit to possess a firearm license.
ZONDI, AJ