A convicted rapist from Welkom in the Free State has been sentenced to life imprisonment while still awaiting sentencing in a separate six-year-old house robbery case, reports Bloemfontein Courant.

The Welkom Regional Court last Tuesday (June 2) sentenced 48-year-old Mzinkwe Leonard Binda to life imprisonment for rape in a decades-old Thabong case that was revived through DNA evidence. He was also sentenced to five years for kidnapping and three years for burglary.

The conviction stems from an October 2006 incident in which Binda broke into the home of a 41-year-old woman in Thabong, threatened her with a knife, abducted her, and raped her in an abandoned container nearby, according to Free State police spokesperson Mahlomola Kareli.

At the time, the suspect was unknown, but forensic samples were collected and preserved for future analysis.

Binda was only arrested in 2023 in connection with an unrelated house robbery, after which DNA testing linked him to multiple outstanding cases in the Thabong area, including rape, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and house robbery.

Kareli said some of the linked matters were later withdrawn due to missing or deceased witnesses, but Binda was formally charged in March 2023.

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