Mpumalanga High Court sends a clear message with harsh sentences for rapists

The Mpumalanga High Court has sentenced five rapists in separate cases to lengthy jail sentences since last week. In the city last Friday, the court sentenced two accused, Hendry Nicholus Mhlongo (24) and Tsepang Reginald Dibakwane (26) to a double life sentence each for rapes they had committed between 2013 to 2016.

According to the provincial police spokesperson, Brig Leonard Hlathi, the pair would commit burglaries and kidnap the victims’ spouses before raping them.

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“In one shocking incident, Mhlongo and Dibakwane broke into a couple’s and robbed them of their belongings at gunpoint, kidnapped the wife in front of her husband then went to a secluded area and gang raped her.

“In another incident, they deliberately shot a pastor during the commission of an armed robbery,” said Hlathi.

Mhlongo and Dibakwane were arrested in 2016 and were handed an addition 220 years’ imprisonment for a number of house robberies with aggravating circumstances, kidnapping and assault.

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In an unrelated case, 33-year-old Alfred Happy Mnyakeni was sentenced to an effective 86 years behind bars in the Middelburg High Court for a string of violent crimes including rape, robbery and assault.

“He committed these acts between 2011 and 2018 and would prey on women walking unaccompanied in the streets.

Mnyakeni would threaten them and drag them to secluded areas in abandoned buildings or nearby bush where he would rape them,” Hlathi continued.

On Tuesday, Mambawulane John Ndlovu (42) was also sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment after his conviction by the eMalahleni Regional Court for a rape he committed in January last year.

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The Kriel Regional Court sentenced Philip Hadebe (37) to a 13-year prison term for the rape of his 59-year-old landlady in May last year.

“Hadebe lured his landlady to the room he was renting, under the guise that something needed her attention. When she went to check, he attacked and raped her before fleeing to Gauteng.

“After a month-long police manhunt, he was tracked down in Gauteng and arrested in July,” said Hlathi 

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The Mpumalanga police commissioner, Gen Mondli Zuma, welcomed the hefty sentences handed down by the courts.

“We believe that these sentences will serve as a deterrent to others who may think of perpetuating crimes against women,” said Zuma.