Johannesburg - The National Prosecuting Authority on Wednesday welcomed the sentence handed to Diepsloot child rapist and killer Ntokozo Radebe.
“We believe that it sends a very strong and unambiguous message that perpetrators of heinous crimes against the vulnerable have no place in our society,” spokesman Nathi Mncube said in a statement.
Judge Nico Coetzee sentenced Hadebe 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.
Mncube congratulated prosecutors for their role in securing Hadebe's conviction and sentence.
“In aggravation, the prosecutors argued that the court should not deviate from the prescribed minimum sentence as the accused failed to show that compelling and substantial circumstances justifying the imposition of a lesser sentence exists,” he said.
“They further argued that the fact that the accused did not show any sign of remorse should be regarded as an aggravating factor.”
The court found Hadebe 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, where she was found with a plastic bag tied over her head. He left the bodies of the cousins in a public toilet.
Sapa