Man who created fake explicit images of Ramaphosa and Cele sentenced to 5 years

The Pietermaritzburg Regional Court has sentenced the man who distributed pornographic images with overlaid faces of President Cyril Ramaphosa and former Police Minister Bheki Cele to five years of direct imprisonment.

The court sentenced Scebi Thabiso Nene after he pleaded guilty to cyber forgery, cyber uttering, and disclosing intimate image data.

Fake explicit images of Ramaphosa, Cele and Sitole

Between September 2022 and May 2023, Nene downloaded pictures of several people, including Ramaphosa, Cele, and former National Police Commissioner General Khehla Sitole.

He then overlaid sexually explicit images onto their faces.

“This created a false impression that the images were the authentic images of the complainants. Nene then disseminated these manipulated images,” National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said.

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In his plea, Nene stated that he worked for Coca-Cola between 2018 and 2019. During this time, he felt as though someone was following him so he decided to inform the police.

Police advised him to monitor the situation and report back if it happened again.

He said he still found that he was being followed and reported this to two other police stations, but his claims were dismissed, according to Nene.

Nene reported feeling that he was being followed

Nene claimed that following that, he went to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), but no one took him seriously.

He therefore decided get in touch with the office of Cele, but he was unsuccessful.

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“That was when he downloaded the images of the complainants and the images of a sexual nature and superimposed the two, making it seem that it was the complainants in those graphic images,” Ramkisson-Kara said.

“He also admitted to distributing the images.”

Nene told the court that he regrets his actions and has promised not to conduct the same crime in the future.

Remorse

The Pietermaritzburg Regional Court sentenced Nene to five years’ imprisonment for cyber forgery. The court also sentenced Nene to three years in prison for cyber uttering and for disclosing intimate image data.

The court ordered that the sentences run concurrently, resulting in the effective sentence of five years’ imprisonment.

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“The National Prosecuting Authority views offences of this nature in a serious light. We advise members of the public to use technology with caution and due regard for the consequences,” Ramkisson-Kara concluded.