Truck hijacker’s appeal for reduction of 25-year jail term fails

Picture: Pexels

Picture: Pexels

Published Apr 23, 2021

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Cape Town – A convicted truck hijacker will spend 25 years behind bars after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) dismissed his challenge against his sentence.

The court found the robberies Isaac Mhlambi was involved in were carefully planned, brazenly executed, and highly organised.

Mhlambi was accused of being involved in two hijackings.

The first was of a Hino 26-ton truck (a horse and trailer) and its cargo in broad daylight on June 19 2007 in Carltonville, Gauteng.

The truck was fairly new and valued in excess of R1 million.

Its cargo of foodstuff consisted of numerous pallets of mealie-meal, samp mealies, cooking oil and rice valued at R300 000.

The second incident involved a Mercedes-Benz horse and trailer carrying cement valued at R800 000 on July 10, 2007 in Ventersdorp.

Mhlambi was convicted in the regional court in Gauteng on two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, one count of unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition.

He was sentenced to an effective 30 years’ imprisonment.

He and his co-accused Tshepo Matshego had successfully petitioned the high court in Pretoria for leave to appeal against their conviction and sentence, where Mhlambi’s sentence was reduced to 25 years, while Matshego’s appeal against his sentence was dismissed.

Following that Mhlambi then petitioned the SCA for special leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence.

Mhlambi’s defence put to the State witnesses was that he was not involved in any of the hijackings.

Of the first incident, Judge of Appeal Ashton Schippers’s judgment read that Mhlambi and his co-perpetrators’ modus operandi was that two of the robbers travelling in a bakkie pulled up alongside the truck and falsely signalled to the driver that the truck was open.

The truck stopped and they pointed their firearms at the driver to get into a Toyota Tazz.

Two workers who were in the truck were also ordered at gunpoint to get into the Tazz.

In the second incident the truck driver had stopped to check whether its headlights were working.

As he got back into the truck, three robbers were at the driver’s door. One of them pulled him out of the truck and overpowered him.

Mhlambi’s palm print was found on the driver’s door of the truck.

“The appellant and his co-perpetrators subdued their victims by threatening them with firearms. Contrary to the appellant’s submission, the fact that no one was killed or injured was not due to the conduct of the robbers, but because of the fear they instilled in their victims.

’’A further aggravating factor was that the driver of the Hino truck and his passengers were kidnapped and held hostage for five hours at gunpoint. This was so that they could not alert the police to the robbery and to ensure that the appellant and his co-accused could make a complete getaway with the truck and its cargo. In this they succeeded.

’’There is no admissible evidence that the Hino truck was found and it is clear that its cargo was never recovered… In the result, the appeal is dismissed,” the judgment read.

Cape Times

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Crime and courts