A former law student who murdered his ”friend” by bludgeoning him with a dumbbell and cutting off his genitals received an 18-year jail sentence on Friday.
Pretoria High Court Judge Tholi Vilakazi sentenced Lebogang Frank Mahlakoana (24) for murdering 54-year-old William Henry Thomas.
Police found the naked Thomas in a pool of blood inside his house after being alerted by neighbours in the complex. Later, they discovered Thomas’s genitals under a table in the bedroom.
Mahlakoana insisted that he had acted in self-defence after Thomas made unwelcome sexual advances and tried to attack him with a knife, and said he should never have been convicted.
Vilakazi, however, said the amount of blood on the floor and walls of Thomas’s house bore testimony to the gratuitous attack, and photographs of the body showed the viciousness involved.
Blood stains at the scene indicated that Thomas was trying to get out of the house, but that Mahlakoana had stopped him.
The judge said that when Thomas’s private parts were ”recklessly and deliberately” severed, he must have been in excruciating pain.
According to the accused’s own evidence, Thomas was at that stage on the verge of collapse and not posing any threat, yet Mahlakoana went on to inflict two further severe blows to Thomas’s head with a dumbbell.
These blows were ”totally unnecessary” and showed that Mahlakoana had not acted in self-defence, Vilakazi said. The court previously found that Mahlakoana had not planned the murder in advance.
Mahlakoana, who worked as a supervisor at a shop at the time, has a four-year-old daughter and was a member of a youth organisation when he committed the crime. He was also a first offender.
The judge rejected the defence’s argument that Mahlakoana had shown remorse, as the accused even now insisted that he was innocent. It was his impression that Mahlakoana’s belief that homosexuality was a sin was the reason why he severed his victim’s genitals.
The brutal murder not only devastated Thomas’s elderly parents, but also attracted wide media interest.
Vilakazi said Mahlakoana’s personal circumstances were not such as to justify departing from prescribed minimum sentences and any lesser sentence would invite a public outcry. — Sapa