Pethe Sara Simao pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping and murdering six-year-old Amantle Samane.
The Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday heard the victim impact statement from Amantle Samane’s mother ahead of the sentencing of Pethe Sara Simao, the Mozambican national who kidnapped, raped and murdered Amantle Samane.
The sentencing of Simao will take place on 1 September.
On Friday, Simao pleaded guilty to kidnapping, rape, murder and contravention of the Immigration Act, committed in October 2024.
The 25-year-old man told the court that he was under the influence of alcohol and strangled the victim to conceal the rape.
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According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), on the day of the incident, the six-year-old’s mother, with the help of the Orlando East community, searched for her missing daughter.
A witness, who had earlier seen the child walking with Simiao, who he knew was not a relative, became suspicious and led the community members to a shack where the child’s lifeless, half-naked body was found.
Amantle Samane case: ‘He was not remorseful’
On Tuesday, Simao’s legal representative, Advocate Ndivhuwo Masindi, argued that his client was remorseful. This, he showed, through his guilty plea, said Masindi.
The lawyer said that after committing the crimes, Simao went to an old man’s house in Zola, Soweto, and asked the man to call the police.
This, after previously arguing that he had handed himself over to the police at the police station.
However, prosecutor Zamikhaya Staffa argued that solely pleading guilty to the crimes was not enough to show remorse.
“He could have taken to the box and told the court how he committed the offence and why. What makes him say now that what I did was wrong? The mere submission that he’s remorseful is not enough. He could have taken it further by taking the court into confidence about the actual offence,” argued Staffa.
“We became aware of the intention to plead guilty in February this year, before the pre-trial proceedings. He ran after the offence, and the police had to look for him; that’s how he was arrested.”
Simao ‘could have changed his mind’
He argued for maximum sentences, pointing out that when Simao said in his admission of guilt statement that he saw Amantle playing outside and called her, it meant he saw his “target”.
“This is a six-year-old girl. One wonders what was going through the mind of this little child, being pulled by the person her mother didn’t know. He locked the child inside his shack and left to buy whatever he wanted. During this time, what was going through the mind of the child?”
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Simao had all the time to change his mind, argued Staffa.
“He could have changed his mind to say, I just locked a child inside, what am I about to do? But he did not do that. He went back to commit the crimes.”
Amantle’s mother ‘cannot sleep’
Earlier, Amantle’s mother, Ntombi Samane, explained to the court that she had not been able to sleep since her daughter’s brutal murder.
“This incident left me with hatred towards foreigners. When I wake up during the night to relieve myself, I will not sleep when I go back to bed. I will relive the pain and remember everything that happened and the state she was in when she was found,” an emotional Samane told the court.
Amantle, the lastborn child of Samane, would have turned seven years old today, she told the court. She said she was reluctant to keep praying and sending her children to Sunday school because that would remind them of their deceased sister.
However, Judge William Karam said he understood Samane’s reluctance to go to church and to pray, but recommended that she continue to take her children to church on Sunday.
“We all know that with God, all things are possible,” he said.
She further told the court that she wished for Simao to get three life sentences.
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