Court sends panga killer to jail

Vusumzi Mshudulu was jailed for an effective twelve years after hacking a woman to death with a panga.

Vusumzi Mshudulu was jailed for an effective twelve years after hacking a woman to death with a panga.

Published Aug 27, 2014

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Kimberley - A Kimberley man was on Tuesday sentenced to 15 years in prison in the Magistrate’s Court after he was found guilty of hacking a woman to death with a panga in Santa Centre in Galeshewe last year.

Vusumzi Mshudulu, 31, however, will only spend twelve years in jail after three years of his sentence were suspended for five years.

Mshudulu stabbed Beaula Qunta, 36, to death with a knife after she damaged his cellphone during an argument at the woman’s home.

During court proceedings it emerged that Qunta damaged the phone while Mshudulu was attempting to stop a fight between her (Qunta) and her boyfriend.

Handing down the sentence on Tuesday, the magistrate, Danie Schneider, said that although he had sympathy for Mshudulu for attempting to stop the fight between the couple, “your actions, however, cannot be condoned by this court because it was unlawful”.

“It is a criminal offence to take the law into your own hands and kill someone just because they have hurt you. If the court fails to hand down an appropriate sentence on this matter, other members of the community would conduct themselves in the same way you have– taking the law into your own hands,” Schneider said.

He commended Mshudulu for trying to help and said that other members of society often turn a blind eye to the screams of women and men who were being abused by their lovers or by other people.

“However this court would never condone the action of taking another person’s life,” Schneider added.

In this case Mshudulu was represented by Barend Titus.

The State was represented by Emar Steyn, while the investigating officer was Detective Constable Paballo Motshepe.

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