The killers who left police crime intelligence Captain Carrim Alli to die in a fire deserved nothing less than life imprisonment, a Pretoria High Court judge said on Thursday.
Judge Ronnie Bosielo sentenced suspended police sergeant Isa Mohammed and his former business partner, Tienie de Bruin, to life imprisonment for the October 2004 murder of Alli. He was found smouldering but still alive on a deserted farm road outside Pretoria.
Alli’s dying words, in which he identified Mohammed as the man who had attacked him, was partly responsible for his killers’ conviction.
The two were further sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment on charges of malicious damage to property and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Passing sentence, Bosielo said it was unfortunate that Mohammed, a colleague of Alli, committed the antithesis of what was expected of an officer of the law, which was to combat crime.
Mohammed had been involved in an underground scam involving ”black dollars”. He and De Bruin were also involved in an office-supply business where they defrauded the police through fraudulent tenders and value-added tax returns.
Both had received ”huge sums of money” from the government to which they were not entitled, and Mohammed had lived a lavish lifestyle that no ordinary police officer could afford.
They had decided to murder Alli when they realised they ran the risk of being exposed.
It was a ”well thought-out and orchestrated plot” by the two accused to assassinate Alli, with Mohammed luring him to the deserted spot where he met his death.
”There is no doubt in my mind, having had the misfortune to see the pictures of the deceased … that he died a profoundly painful and cruel death. Witnesses at the crime scene described to the court in graphic terms how the deceased was burnt alive. It is common caused that he had suffered 100% burns,” the judge said.
One witness testified that Alli was unable to speak, and smoke was billowing out of his mouth.
Bosielo described the two accused as ”inhuman, heartless and callous”.
Alli’s family reacted with relief to the sentence. ”At last. Now we can sleep again… I feel better now. They got what they deserved,” Alli’s brother Shaid told reporters. — Sapa