By Baldwin Ndaba and Masindi Ravhutsi
When a former National Intelligence Agency operative was given a 14-year jail term for murdering three people, including his seven-year-old child, his family was relieved.
But the relatives of his victims were appalled.
Maggie Manyama, whose sister was killed, had to be escorted from the courtroom after Acting Judge Gerhardus Hattingh sentenced Wellington Dumisani Sikhakhane.
| Sikhakhane pleaded guilty |
"How can he be given 14 years for killing three people?" she asked, weeping.
Sikhakhane pleaded guilty to using his service pistol to kill his ex-wife, Dikeledi Manyama, and her husband, Sibusiso Jackson, outside their home in Kempton Park in August 2006. They had been married for only a month.
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He then went into the house, where he shot and killed his seven-year-old daughter Lungi, who was asleep in the main bedroom.
Passing sentence yesterday, Judge Hattingh said Sikhakhane had been humiliated and provoked before he committed the murders and had acted with diminished responsibility.
In his plea explanation, Sikhakhane told the court that Manyama had humiliated him when she told him Lungi was not his child. He said he became emotional and fired several shots at Manyama and Jackson.
| 'She also treated me badly. She was an alcoholic' |
The judge said Sikhakhane's version was supported by Kobus Truter's psychological report.
"Sikhakhane was in a state of severe emotional upheaval, that he felt rejected and angry because he had been misled over a period of time. With these accumulated frustrations and in a state of rage, he reacted with diminished logic and poor control, especially after being told that his beloved child, Lungi, indeed was not his child," Truter had told the court.
"He also never expected his wife to be unfaithful and, in fact, had a blind belief in her. Her criticism was also unexpected, and his love for her was instrumental in his actions."
Judge Hattingh acknowledged that the murder of Lungi was "horrific and shocking", but still found that the mitigating factors far outweighed the aggravating factors.
"He acted in a diminished responsibility. He posed no danger to society. There was no evidence that he will ever do it again.
"He was a first offender and was a member of the VIP unit of the South African Secret Service. As a result of his job, he travelled nationally and internationally. And now he is unemployed due to his actions," the judge ruled.
Jackson's siblings, Wendy Rangongo and Morgan Jackson, were outraged.
"I am not happy about the sentence. When is a woman ever going to be safe in this country? She was divorced from him in 2003.
"How can we trust the judges and the justice system if they do that to us? How does the judge justify him killing his ex-wife, his own daughter and my brother?" Rangongo asked.
Morgan added: "My brother, his wife and her daughter were killed like rabbits."
Now the Jackson family are fearing the worst, saying Sikhakhane was not likely to serve his full sentence.
This, the siblings said, was because the judge found that he was a first offender with good standing in the Secret Service.
Harold Sikhakhane, the killer's stepson, said: "I feel cheated. It was like the only person that died that night was my baby sister."
Sikhakhane's family welcomed the sentence. His mother Joyce said her son would soon be reunited with the family, an apparent reference to the length of the jail term.
She was unhappy, however, that she was not given a chance to testify in mitigation of sentence. She claimed Dikeledi had failed to take care of her "own children" and was very abusive towards Sikhakhane.
"She also treated me badly. She was an alcoholic," she said.
Sikhakhane's request for leave to appeal was denied.
- This article was originally published on page 2 of The Star on November 05, 2009
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