Johannesburg - The government on Wednesday welcomed the sentence handed to Diepsloot child rapist and killer Ntokozo Radebe.
“This sentencing is a clear indication that government will not tolerate crime against children,” acting communications department director general Donald Liphoko said in a statement.
“Combating crime and the scourge of women and children abuse remains the government's priority.”
Judge Nico Coetzee sentenced Radebe to nine life terms and 15 years' imprisonment for three murders, six rapes, and three kidnappings after his conviction in the High Court in Pretoria.
In September 2013 he murdered Anelisa Mkhonto, aged five, the next month he murdered Yonelisa Mali, aged two, and her cousin Zandile, aged three, in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg.
“We applaud the South African judicial system and law enforcement agencies for their tireless efforts in ensuring that justice is served,” said Liphoko.
He urged communities to work with police and report criminal activities.
The court found Radebe lured the girls from their homes and took them to his shack, where he raped them vaginally and anally before suffocating or strangling them.
He took Mkhonto's body to a nearby rubbish dump, and she was found with a plastic bag tied over her head. He left the bodies of the cousins in a public toilet. - Sapa