Durban - A young police constable who had an affair with his colleague's girlfriend will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing his love rival.
Rishen Rampersad, 26, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the high court in Pretoria 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 into the garage of his Villieria home.
Rampersad had had an affair with Lagois’ fiancée, Caroline Naidoo, since 2015.
She, too, is a police officer and was Rampersad’s commander while he was a student at the police college.
Mystery still surrounds Lagois’s murder as the motive remains unclear.
It is speculated that it was a love triangle, and that Naidoo wanted him out of the way to start a life with her lover.
While she was not charged alongside Rampersad, Judge Bert Bam found on Friday that Rampersad and Naidoo had planned the murder.
Rampersad, who insisted that he had nothing to do with the murder, earlier told police that his girlfriend (Naidoo) had 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 at the shooting range.
“She told me we must finish him,” Rampersad's confession to the police reads.
It said the two of them sat in her office and, while having lunch, talked about how they were going to carry out the murder.
According to the confession, Naidoo then told him that Lagois had left his service pistol in the safe that day.
They went to her house, where she fetched the firearm while he waited in the garage.
She handed it to him and he waited for Lagois to pull his car into the garage before he opened fire.
More than 14 shots were fired and Lagois died at the scene.
However, Rampersad denied having made the confession and said the police had tried to “set him up”.
But Judge Bam rejected this and said all evidence pointed to him and Naidoo, who was 17 years his senior.
Naidoo did not attend her lover's trial, and had to be subpoenaed to testify on his behalf in court.
She claimed she had heard nothing that afternoon when Lagois was gunned down, although she was in the house.
The judge said this was astounding, as neighbours down the road had heard the shots.
Rampersad has also remained mum regarding her possible involvement.
Judge Bam said it was clear she had been involved as she knew where the weapon was, and only she and the victim had keys for the safe.
The judge accepted that Ram- persad had been influenced by Naidoo, and he questioned whether Rampersad was “the hired assassin”.
He said it was a pity that Ram- persad had not told the truth about the motive for the murder.
“He does not need to come clean, but it would have counted in his favour,” he said.
Naidoo’s fate is still unknown.
Lagois’ mother, Ina Kruger, cried bitterly after sentencing.
“He took my son’s life, but he will never be able to take my son’s soul,” she said.