The man who pleaded guilty to murdering a Tshwane Technical University professor was on Tuesday sentenced to 55 years’ imprisonment by the Pretoria High Court.
Professor William Papo, Lebogang Victor Moloto (25) and his girlfriend, Mmathapelo Jaqueline Mamaila (20), were found dead in Papo’s house in Doornpoort, Pretoria, in January last year.
After a lengthy meeting in his chambers, acting Judge Khami Makhafola on Tuesday accepted a plea-bargain agreement in which the accused, Joseph Bongani Mahlangu, pleaded guilty to the murders.
He also admitted to robbing his three victims of two vehicles, bank cards, cellphones, CDs, cash, electronic goods and clothing.
Mahlangu, who said he ”regretted” the murders and described them as ”a robbery went wrong”, will have to serve 40 years of his 55-year sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
He said he is willing to become a state witness against his two fellow accused, Sydney Albert Mashigo (24) and Patrick Lekalakala (28).
The two, who denied guilt to all of the charges, will go on trial separately in the High Court next week.
Mahlangu earlier made a confession in which he implicated Lekalakala and Mashigo, saying the three of them had planned to rob Papo, but things got out of control when Mashigo allegedly strangled Papo while Lekalakala was having sex with the professor.
Mahlangu said they murdered Papo’s two house guests so that there would be no witnesses.
The state alleges that the three men had stabbed their victims, tied their hands and feet, wrapped and bound their bodies in bedding and then pulled plastic shopping bags over their heads, tying them tightly around their necks.
All three victims died of suffocation.
The three bodies were discovered in different rooms at Papo’s house by guards from a security company.
Papo’s car was found abandoned in the parking lot of a townhouse complex in Kempton Park the same day and Moloto’s bakkie in a garage in The Orchards several days later. — Sapa