The killer of retired Garsfontein scientist Bill van der Riet is to serve 25 years in prison.
Van der Riet, 61, was found dead in his home on May 30, 2007. He had been strangled and his hands and feet were tied behind his back.
He lay on his stomach and his pants were pulled halfway down.
Judge Cynthia Pretorius said it was clear his killers had wanted to humiliate him and show their contempt for him.
Former car guard Abel Magopa was the only suspect arrested after the robbery and murder, although it was found that more than one person had broken into the house.
Magopa said he had not met Van der Riet, nor had he been to his house.
While there was no direct evidence linking him to the incident, Magopa was convicted as his fingerprint was on a supermarket flyer and his palm print on a newspaper found next to Van der Riet’s body.
The court rejected his defence that while he worked as a car guard at a mall in the east of Pretoria, people who “trusted him” used to give him their newspapers to read while they went shopping. He said he gave these back to them, so this was how his prints must have ended up on the newspaper and flyer.
But as he had not met Van der Riet before and it was unlikely that the scientist could have given him a newspaper to read, this explanation was rejected by the judge.
Van der Riet lived alone and his body was discovered by Community Police Forum members, who had been alerted by Van der Riet’s gardener that something was wrong.
Police were not able to trace the gardener or the domestic worker after the murder.
Magopa had been awaiting trial for four and a half years – mainly because he had fired several of his State-appointed lawyers.
But Judge Pretorius said the fact that he had been waiting all these years for “his day in court” had to serve as a mitigating reason why a life sentence should not be imposed.
The judge also could not find that Van der Riet’s murder had been planned, as it followed the robbery. She also could not find that Magopa had acted alone.
Magopa was to spend the best years of his life in jail and would hopefully one day come out a better person, she said. She sentenced him to 23 years in jail for murder and 15 for the robbery, but ordered that he serve 25 years behind bars.
Pretoria News