Pretoria - “I still love him very much and I will wait for him to get out of jail.”
This was the response of a young woman, shortly after her lover was jailed for 22 years for killing another woman he two-timed her with.
Christopher Maluleka stabbed “the other” woman in his life, Valentine Nkala, in the chest with a long kitchen knife.
He told the court that he was upset because “his true love”, Zandile Sibanda, left him after she heard that he was cheating on her.
Maluleka, after his arrest, told Sibanda when she visited him in prison, “I did it for you babe.”
On Wednesday the High Court in Pretoria convicted him of premeditated murder and sentenced him to 22 years behind bars.
Sibanda gasped in shock as Judge Natvarlal Ranchod sent her lover, 42, to jail for that long.
Outside court she told the Pretoria News she did not mind that he would probably be in his 60s by the time he is released.
She agreed it was a fair sentence, as he had faced a life sentence, but Sibanda said her lover was a first offender anddeserved less jail time. “But I will stand by him,” she said.
Maluleka pleaded guilty to murder, but denied that he planned to kill Nkala. He claimed he happened to have the 19cm-long kitchen knife in his pocket when he “bumped” into Nkala at her workplace at the Diepsloot Mall on March 9 last year.
Maluleka said he and Nkala were good friends who happened to have a sexual relationship. His girlfriend found out about it and confronted Nkala about it. The two women argued over Maluleka and Sibanda eventually moved out of the house she shared with Maluleka.
On the day of the incident he went looking for Sibanda to try to convince her to return home. But, he said, he bumped into Nkala along the way and they talked about his girlfriend. “I told her we had to end our relationship because my girlfriend left me, but she refused.
“She grabbed me by the arm and bit me on my back. I became angry and took out the knife and stabbed her once in the chest.”
Maluleka said she fell with her head on a stone. He left her there and ran home. He said he feared that he would be attacked by the community if they found her body. He later gave himself up to the police.
Maluleka claimed he only happened to have the knife with him that day and did not take it to kill her. But Judge Ranchod found that nobody happened to have such a long knife with them, without reason. He found Maluleka was angry because his girlfriend left him and he went in search of Nkala to kill her, as she stood in the way of his relationship with Sibanda.
When Nkala’s body was found in a veld near the Diepsloot Mall, she was half naked, but Maluleka denied he had raped her. The judge said there was a strong suspicion of rape, but this could not be proved.
Before taking the stand to testify in mitigation of sentence, Maluleka on Wednesday insisted that his girlfriend first had to leave the court. She refused and the judge said he could not force her.
Maluleka said he felt very bad about killing Nkala and depriving her family of a daughter.
He asked the court for mercy and said he had three children to support. He said he had a fourth child with Sibanda, born while he was in jail.
Pretoria News