Thabo Amos Masinga, the man convicted of slitting the throats of two Baviaanspoort prison nurses in 2005, was sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment in the Pretoria High Court on Friday.
Before reading out punishment, acting Judge Solly Sithole said Masinga (24) should reasonably expect a robust sentence for his ”most repulsive and despicable” crimes.
”To describe them as appalling and ghastly would be an understatement,” he said.
Masinga’s planning of the crimes — in which he went to the prison hospital and kidnapped the two nurses, raped one and indecently assaulted the other and then slit their throats and robbed them — was carefully and cunningly planned, the judge said.
”In effect you have been sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment for all these crimes you have been convicted of,” said Sithole.
He said he felt the sentencing was tempered with mercy and appropriate. — Sapa