Durban - Life in jail was not disproportionate for the contract killing of Pietermaritzburg doctor Bhavish Sewram, who was shot dead at his surgery in June 2013, Judge Anton van Zyl said when he imposed life on two men for Sewram’s callous, premeditated murder.
Accused Brian Treasurer, 55, a former policeman, and Mfaniseni Nxumalo, 37, were convicted in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday.
Defence counsel Diana Franklin and Bob Bahadur asked Judge Van Zyl to find substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from the prescribed life sentences, but the judge said he could not.
Murders were more serious when killers had an income and killed for greed.
Treasurer received a pension of R7 000 a month and had other money while Nxumalo had a grass-cutting business, repaired machinery and did building work.
The indictment alleges that Pietermaritzburg businessman Rajivee Soni decided to have Sewram killed. Evidence given in the trial was that “Sewram had to be killed because he was in love with Soni’s wife”.
The indictment continues that Treasurer agreed to Soni’s plans and enlisted the help of Nxumalo to find a hit man. They persuaded Sabelo Dlamini to kill Sewram.
Soni’s trial for the murder of Sewram continues in the same court on September 28.
Dlamini, the main witness in the trial of Treasurer and Nxumalo, said that Treasurer handed him the pistol, and showed him how to use it.
After his arrest Dlamini confessed to the murder, took responsibility for it and was jailed for 20 years. He received R12 000 for the murder.
Judge Van Zyl said that the contract murder implied that it had been preceded by ascertaining Sewram’s movements and habits. On the evening of the murder, Treasurer had driven Dlamini and Nxumalo close to the surgery. Dlamini was shown where to wait for the lights of Sewram’s surgery to be switched off, then to go to his car and shoot him. Treasurer and Nxumalo did not have direct links with Sewram.
Sewram’s widow, Yuvadia, a former attorney who has two small daughters, expressed relief at the outcome of the trial. She called the accused monsters, as they had helped arrange the murder for money.
Parmanand Sewram, the doctor’s father, had the heartbreaking task of identifying his dead son’s body. He, his wife, Nalini, and Yuvadia have regularly attended the trial.
Judge Van Zyl said that in present crime waves, courts were considered too lenient in sentences they imposed. The natural indignation felt by society that sentences were too lenient could lead to people taking the law into their own hands.
The Mercury