South Africa’s high crime rate and prevalence of firearms were dissuading some people from visiting the country, a Pietermaritzburg High Court judge said on Thursday before passing sentence on two armed robbers.
Acting Judge Sipho Nxumalo convicted Sipho Zitha (31) of Durban and Sydney Yende (31) of Soweto of the armed robbery of R100 000 from Coin Security guards at a garage in Cato Ridge, between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, in October 2005.
The men will now serve 20 years in jail.
The court was told how machine gun fire raked the precinct of the service station while a security guard was taking money from a drop safe. The guard ran for his life and a passerby was struck with shrapnel while the gang grabbed the money.
Zitha and Yende were also convicted of the possession of two AK-47 automatic rifles, six handguns, and escaping from custody.
Nxumalo said some owners of businesses no longer took their money to banks themselves because of merciless attacks by robbers. As a result they had to incur extra expenses on security deliveries.
He said that court rolls showed that hardly a week went by in which armed robbery cases were not heard.
Nxumalo said in most robbery cases the money was not recovered. If robbers were not arrested at the scene they were often difficult to trace and the money was seldom recovered.
The court accepted that the firearms were found at Zitha’s house.
Police also found R6 000 in Yende’s possessions and cash slips indicating he had indulged in a spending spree within hours of the robbery.
Among his purchases were a pair of Italian woman’s plastic sandals for R2 400, men’s trousers for R1 600 and a golf shirt for R800. ‒ Sapa