Cape Town - Convicted murderer Thandi Maqubela has amended the original grounds of her appeal against her conviction and sentence, the application was due to be heard in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday but had to be postponed to August 21 because of the amendments.
Earlier this year, Maqubela was convicted of murdering her husband, acting Judge Ntobeko Patrick Maqubela and sentenced to 18 years in jail.
The judge’s decomposing body was discovered in his luxury Bantry Bay flat two days after he was murdered in June 2009. Following the discovery of his body, it appeared that the judge had been suffocated with a piece of cling wrap.
Six years later after murdering her husband, Maqubela was also found guilty of fraud and forgery for altering her husband’s will. She received three years each for those charges, but Judge John Murphy ordered that the sentences should run concurrently, which means that Maqubela faces an effective eighteen years behind bars.
Duma Maqubela, the acting judge’s son from a previous marriage, told African News Agency that he had “no problem” with her application for leave to appeal her conviction and sentence. He believes “it will help to bring her to terms with her current reality, that she is not above the law and that no one is”.
During the sentencing, Murphy took into account the humiliation Maqubela felt because of her husband’s infidelities, but said she lacked empathy and showed delusional tendencies throughout the trial.
ANA