OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday
A FORMER anti-apartheid freedom fighter who killed three bus commuters in Cape Town’s transport wars for R350 has been sentenced to three life terms in prison, plus another 75 years.
Bandile Botya, 31, had pleaded guilty in the Cape High Court to three charges of murder and 36 of attempted murder after admitting that he was a hitman for taxi owners waging a turf war against a public bus company in the city’s townships.
He told the court that he had attacked six buses, killing a bus driver and two commuters and injuring dozens, on the orders of taxi owners who were locked in a battle with the Golden Arrow bus company over fares and routes between April and July.
“They told me to just shoot at every Golden Arrow bus I see,” he said in papers before the court.
He said it was greed that drove him to agree to carry out the attacks, for which he was eventually paid some R350.
“They were going to give me money. That is the main reason why I agreed to do it,” he said.
Botya listened emotionlessly as judge Nathan Erasmus handed down three life sentences, to be served separately, 10 years for each conviction on attempted murder and a 15-year sentence for illegal possession of an automatic firearm.
Most of the 10-year sentences are to run concurrently, which along with the firearm sentence, amounts to an effective 75 years on top of the life sentences.
In passing sentence, Erasmus said he had taken into account that Botya has had a difficult life.
He left school at an early age and joined the ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe to train as a guerrilla and oppose apartheid “due to his commitment to change in this country,” Erasmus said.
He went into exile during the liberation struggle, and briefly worked as a bodyguard for ANC leaders after the fall of apartheid before joining the post-apartheid defence force.
But Erasmus said Botya’s hardship could not outweigh the pain he caused.
“You single-handedly unleashed a reign of terror on the community,” he said. “You as a former freedom fighter should at least have been aware of their fright, yet you decided to kill innocent, defenceless men and women, mothers and fathers.”
Police said two taxi owners had been arrested in connection with the case, and would face charges. – AFP
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