Mzwinila allowed to appeal sentencing

Sharon Mathala | Friday March 7, 2014 16:32

 

Kirby further ruled that the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is to investigate and report to the court on the actual period spent by Mzwinila in pre-trial incarceration in Botswana. This is in respect to the Bank of Baroda robbery and not for any other offences which he may have been charged with.

Together with his brother Edward, Mzwinila robbed Bank of Baroda of P1 million in April 2003. He was convicted on February 23, 2011 and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. His appeal was later successful and his sentence was reduced to 12 years.

The court learnt that on October 14, 2011, Mzwinila applied for leave to appeal but was advised of their right to seek leave from the CoA. His brother, Edward did so and was successful. Mzwinila appealed that his sentence of 12 years was excessive on account that he is a first time offender and is in ill health. He also claimed that the first magistrate failed to give him full credit for the period he spent in custody whilst he waited for trial.

In his judgment Kirby said that the robbery was a serious one. He further explained that the minimum sentence for armed robbery is 10 years imprisonment and it was not an abuse of discretion to allow for aggravating features of the crime by imposing a slightly bigger term of imprisonment.

“The trial was a complex one, I could find no evidence on the record of the involvement of Mzwinila in other cases, for which he was detained for, although he told the court that he was arrested for the Home Corp case as well. This is an aspect of the matter which should have been investigated,” said Kirby.

Kirby explained that the records indicate that Mzwinila was detained in Botswana from February 2006 to mid July 2007 when he was released on bail for a year and five months whilst awaiting trial.

“It is not clear how much of the earlier period, if any, was spent awaiting trial for the Home Corp robbery. He also complain of a period when he was detained in South Africa while fighting attempts to extradite him to Botswana. That detention however was a consequence of his flight from justice, it would not be proper to regard it as a period of pre-trial detention in Botswana for this case,” said Kirby.