/ 8 December 2009

Ananias Mathe sentenced to 54 years behind bars

Notorious criminal Ananias Mathe was sentenced to 54 years in jail by the South Gauteng High Court on Tuesday.

He will only be eligible for parole after he has served 43 years of his sentence. By then he will be 76-years-old.

In June, Mathe was convicted of 64 charges of rape, indecent assault, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and housebreaking. At the time, Judge Geraldine Borchers said: ”The accused before me strikes me as a hardened criminal. His behaviour has been vicious … largely abnormal,” Borchers said.

On Friday, the court heard that Mathe suffered from an anti-social personality disorder.

The 33-year-old Mozambican’s psychologist, Wicus Coetzee, said Mathe was never part of a normal society from childhood. He preferred to be alone most of the time.

”He doesn’t know what it is to be in a normal society, his personality was negatively influenced by what happened to him.”

Coetzee said Mathe told him that he ran away from home at the age of 12 because he was scared his mother would give him a hiding after he had dropped out of school. He had left school because his teachers were beating him. He joined a military camp in Mozambique after that. He later went to Russia for further military training.

”In his life he never had parents teaching him the rules and the laws of society. He only had military training where he was taught how to fight and kill people.” — Sapa