Durban - Murdered oThongathi couple Maliga and Balaram Reddy’s son, Niva-shen, on Thursday declined to testify on the impact of his parents’ deaths, because he was too afraid.
He still lives with the trauma of when they were brutally attacked and robbed in their Burbreeze home in December 2013, a home that has since been abandoned.
The four men responsible for the couple’s murder were sentenced to life on Thursday in the Durban High Court.
Acting Judge Eric Nzimande also sentenced Sibusiso Mthimkhulu, 28, Senzo Sello Ndluli, 20, Lucky Ernest Njoko, 31, and Vusi Ngxumeshe, 37, to eight years for attempted murder, 15 years for housebreaking with intent to rob, and 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances.
These sentences are to run concurrently with their life sentence.
Shortly after sentence was passed, the men, through their legal counsel, successfully applied for leave to appeal against their conviction and sentence.
Mthimkhulu and Ngxu-meshe are appealing both their conviction and sentence, while Ndluli and Njoko intend to appeal their conviction only.
Outside court, Nivashen said that while he was happy with the sentence, he would wait to see what happens at the appeal.
His uncle, and Maliga’s brother, Parmanandan Naidoo, said while they could not get their loved ones back, this sentence helped give them closure.
“We can now focus on investigating my niece and Niva-shen’s sister’s death,” he said.
The Reddy couple, Nivashen, his sister Prishini Rammanan, and her husband Rishal, were all at home when they were attacked and robbed.
The couple were killed in their respective bedrooms.
Balaram Reddy, 59, died of a blunt-force head injury and bullet wound to the abdomen, and his wife, Maliga, 53, died of a bullet wound to the head.
Nivashen was stabbed and assaulted in his bedroom and his heavily pregnant sister and Rishal were also confronted in their room. They were visiting before the birth of their child.
Naidoo said Prishini had gone missing on the anniversary of her parents’ death in 2013.
Her body was found on railway tracks in January 2014.
On Thursday the State argued for a life sentence for the couple’s murder, saying the family was attacked in their home for no apparent reason.
State advocate ZG Mshololo also told the court the family home had since been abandoned because of the trauma which is still felt today.
She felt the men were not capable of being rehabilitated.
All four men were first offenders and all of them had children who were not in their care.
“The victims were killed in cold blood, while sleeping in the privacy of their own home at night. From the evidence, there was no clear motivation to commit such a crime,” said the acting judge.
When handing down judgment, in May, Nzimande found both Rishal Rammanan and Nivashen to be reliable and satisfactory witnesses.
The acting judge had also said there was overwhelming evidence against Mthimkhulu.
He said Rammanan had placed Ngxumeshe at the crime scene, and this was corroborated by Ngxumeshe’ s confession to the police.
All the men had made confessions, but had pleaded not guilty.
The confessions were allowed to be submitted as evidence.
Nzimande had found these confessions to be admissions of guilt, as all four men had placed themselves at the crime scene and associated themselves to what happened.
In their application for leave to appeal on Thursday, the defence counsel argued that another court would come to a different conclusion about Rammanan and Nivashen’s testimony. They also argued that Nzimande erred in finding these confessions admissible.
Both Nivashen and his uncle had regularly attended court throughout the trial and told the Daily News that he had no reason to lie when he testified.
Daily News