Man gets seven years for manslaughter

Tebogo Kgalemang
Correspondent | Wednesday August 25, 2010 00:00

High court judge Justice Modiri Letsididi said while he took into account the mitigation by defence attorney Miriro Furusa a minimum sentence of seven years was appropriate other than a discharge.  The judge stated that he accepted that Unopa Baki, 19, was a youthful first offender and that this may have contributed to the offence.

Letsididi said it was also his finding that the deceased had contributed to his death by assaulting the convict who never provoked him. However the judge stated, 'The aggravating factor is that the life of another man has been lost in your hands.'

Unopa Baki (19) had pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter. The prosecution had submitted that Baki clapped Ndulu (now deceased) and kicked him in the chest after the deceased beat him with a small thin stick on the back at a bar in Tutume in 2007. Ndulu never woke up and was certified dead at the hospital resulting from shock due to head injury.

Wanani Ngebane and Kabelo Gaonyadiwe appeared for the State.