Sindisiwe Manqele covers her head with a scarf as she arrives at the Randburg Magistrate's Court on September 11
The murder-convicted girlfriend of hip hop star Flabba was sentenced to 12 years in jail in the High Court sitting in Palm Ridge, Johannesburg, on Thursday.
“It is my unpleasant task to impose the following sentence … you are hereby sentenced to a period of 12-year imprisonment.
“It is my duty to give you an appropriate sentence for the crime you are convicted of. Society expects me to do that and I took an oath to do that and I am going to do that,” Judge Solly Sithole told Sindisiwe Manqele, the girlfriend of Nkululeko “Flabba” Habedi, who sat in the dock with her hand cupping her face.
She wore a pair of blue jeans, a purple turtle-neck jersey and black jacket. She had a red scarf with flowers wrapped around her head as she tried to shield her face from the media.
“When I show you mercy, it does not mean that you are smart or clever and the court is stupid. I show you mercy because mercy is part of justice in itself,” said Sithole.
He said she tried to resuscitate Habedi until “his eyes were popping out”.
Sithole also said she was the victim of mutual jealousy.
She was a first offender and stood a good chance of being rehabilitated.
He said in other countries, a crime like this was punishable by death.
“It’s a very serious offence in every language… It is so serious that I cannot think of another crime more serious than that… except for treason,” he said.
Sithole told Manqele that in the United States, murder was punishable by execution, through the administration of a lethal injection.
In other African countries, “they take you to a ditch and have a firing squad open fire on you”, he said.
“If you take the life of another person, you get punished for that. Whether it be the life of a child, a lover… That is not acceptable in any society.”
Sithole said as the couple argued at Habedi’s house, a lot of “fuck you” was heard.
“One cringes to use it in a court of law,” he said. – News24