Killer Donovan Moodley wants conviction overturned

Killer Donovan Moodley wants his conviction for the murder of student Leigh Matthews overturned on a technicality, the Star newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Moodley claims his guilty-plea statement was contradictory and that the Judge Joop Labuschagne “committed a material irregularity
in the proceedings during the conviction”.

In a notice for application for a special entry filed at the Johannesburg High Court last week, Moodley said some of the admissions made in his confession were contradictory, and it was Judge Labuschagne’s responsibility to clear these up before passing sentence.

Moodley has already filed a late application for leave to appeal against his sentence, arguing that the his life sentence was “shockingly inappropriate”.

Moodley’s counsel, Advocate Charles Thompson said the latest application was that a procedural irregularity had occurred, which effected the sentencing.

During his trial in 2005, Moodley admitted to planning and executing the kidnapping of Matthews from the Bond University campus in Sandton in July 2004. He held her for several hours, took R50 000 ransom money from her father and then shot and killed her to stop her from later identifying him.

Labushagne found him guilty of kidnapping, extortion and murder, and sentenced him to life for murder, an additional 15 years for kidnapping and 10 years for extortion.

A date was yet to be set for the hearing.