Durban - A Newlands East East family feud dating back to 2012 and leading up to the murder of local man Ryall Reece Ryan in 2017, saw a man sentenced to 18 years in a Durban court on Wednesday.
Carlo Werner, 31, received the jail term for shooting 26-year-old Ryan five times. Ryan died later in hospital.
According to the indictment, there was a long history of bad blood between Werner and Ryan, with Werner suffering injuries during a fight they had some time before the murder.
This angered Werner, who then planned to murder his adversary.
On March 4, 2017, Ryan was buying airtime at a local tuckshop when he was shot.
Werner allegedly discharged three shots rapidly at Ryan, followed by a pause and then the fourth shot, before discharging a fifth one.
He returned to his car and drove off, made a U-turn and drove back past the crime scene.
He later handed himself to the police at Durban Central police station with his firearm.
Ryan was declared dead on arrival at a hospital.
Werner’s firearm ballistically matched the fired casings recovered from the crime scene.
There was evidence that Ryan died as a result of the five gunshot wounds; four exited through his back and one in the head.
Five eye witnesses, who testified in court, said that Ryan was armed but never reached for his firearm.
Werner’s version was that Ryan “bent his head and grabbed his firearm on his right hip, pointed it at him, and discharged a round”, a version that was dismissed by state advocate
Krishen Shah as contradictory, inherently improbable and undoubtedly a recent fabrication to defend himself.
“(Ryan) posed no threat and, considering the grouping of gunshot injuries, (Werner) clearly intended to kill him,” said Shah.
Werner’s lawyer asked the court to deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence of 15 years for murder, saying that he had family, a wife and minor children who depended on him.
Judge Dhayanthie Pillay found Werner guilty of murder, but found that there was no evidence to suggest that it was premeditated.
“An aggravating factor was that he lied under oath in the affidavit he made during the bail application.
Lying has cost you in more ways than one, including putting up a defence that any sensible person realised had so many holes in it,” said Judge
Pillay.