Leila Samodien
Justice Writer
ACTIVIST Angy Peter is the “total antithesis” of what she has been convicted of – murder and kidnapping – her defence lawyer has told the Western Cape High Court.
Sentencing procedures are being carried out in the case of Peter, her husband, Isaac Mbadu, and their co-accused, Azola Dayimani and Christopher Dina.
The four were convicted about two months ago of the murder and kidnapping of Rowan du Preez in Mfuleni in October 2012. They were acquitted, however, of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Du Preez was necklaced and left for dead after allegedly having stolen Peter and Mbadu’s TV set.
During argument before Judge Robert Henney yesterday, the advocate representing the couple, William King SC, pushed for the court not to impose the minimum sentence of life imprisonment for the murder.
He said the court should look at the totality of the evidence and the couple’s circumstances. Among these were that the couple had children and that both parents had been convicted.
King said the court also had to look at why the couple had committed the crime, as well as that it hadn’t been planned. It had been a “spur of the moment thing”.
He also described Peter as someone who “stood apart from the crowd”, who had been considered to be a “hero” of society and who had done good for her community.
Peter is a founding member of the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and is understood to have played a key role in the organisation’s campaign for the set-up of the Khayelitsha Commission into policing in the area.
He contended that Peter and Mbadu, who also worked for the SJC, had been “driven to do something” because, amid their fight to bring an end to police incompetence, they were faced with a situation where their TV had been stolen and “the police are doing nothing about it”.
He said one could imagine the level of “anger and frustration” on the part of Peter and Mbadu.
Earlier in the proceedings, the court heard evidence from a neighbour of the couple, Nolubabalo Mazongolo, who had been taking care of the couple’s four children.
“I took Angy as my own sister. I decided to take the children,” she said.
Mazongolo said she got some money from the SJC to care for the children – usually about R1 500 a month.
The children, she said, would “isolate” themselves from others while she was at work, but would watch TV with her when she returned home.
When asked by King what the children needed most, she said they needed the “love of their father and mother”.
A lawyer for Dayimani and Dina is yet to argue, as is the prosecutor.
Sentencing procedures continue today.