Pretoria - Gasps of shock filled a courtroom on Friday as a 26-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in killing Moot police officer Lieutenant-Colonel Reinier Lagois.
The officer died in a hail of bullets in January 2016 as he pulled his car into the garage of his Villieria home.
His killer is Constable Rishen Rampersad, who had an affair since 2015 with Lagois’s fiancée Caroline Naidoo. She is also a police officer and was Rampersad’s commander while he was a student at the police college.
While she was not charged, Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, Judge Bert Bam found that Rampersad and Naidoo planned the murder.
Rampersad, who insisted that he had nothing to do with the murder in a confession, earlier told the police that Naidoo asked him to kill Lagois.
He said at first he thought she was joking, but on the day of the incident she came to him where he trained at the shooting range.
“She told me we must finish him,” he said in his confession.
Rampersad said while having lunch in her office, they talked about how they were going to execute the murder.
According to him, Naidoo then told him that Lagois had left his service pistol in the safe that day. They went to her house where she fetched it.
She handed it to him and he waited for Lagois to pull the car into the garage before he opened fire. More than 14shots were fired and Lagois died at the scene.
Rampersad denied he made the confession and said the police had tried to “set him up”.
But Judge Bam rejected this and said all fingers pointed at him and Naidoo, 17 years his senior.
Naidoo never attended the trial and she had to be subpoenaed to testify.
She claimed she heard nothing when Lagois was gunned down, although she was in the house.
The judge said this was astounding, as neighbours down the road heard the shots.
Judge Bam said it was clear she was involved because she knew where the weapon was. The judge accepted that Rampersad was influenced by Naidoo and he questioned whether Rampersad was “the hired assassin”.
Naidoo’s fate is still unknown.
Lagois’ mother Ina Kruger cried bitterly after the sentencing: “He took my son’s life, but he will never be able to take my son’s soul.”