Strong mitigation factors earn 'passion killer' cut in jail term

Tebogo Kgalemang
Correspondent | Friday May 20, 2011 00:00

Judge Chinhengo said in the case before him, the mitigation factors of Lebonetse Gagoitsiwe warrant an adjustment downwards.

'That adjustment is not to downward the seriousness of the offence where a life of a 22-year-old young woman was senselessly taken away leaving behind another victim of the offence, her child,' Judge Chinhengo said.

'I have called for victim impact reports to be submitted to the courts in order to guide them in sentencing, but it seems my recommendation has fallen on deaf ears,' he said. The judge said however in the end, the sentence must fit both the offender and the offence.

'And I consider that an adjustment downwards from 15 years imprisonment by two years would be a fitting adjustment of the accused before me,' said Judge Chinhengo. The defence counsel had urged the court to consider in mitigation the jealousy, which Gagoitsiwe had towards his girlfriend and the provocation he suffered.

The advocate had stated that these arose from the fact that he found her with another man in bed on the day before he killed her and that she bit his wrist.

Judge Chinhengo stated that the accused's conduct in this case could be distinguished from the conduct of other persons in other passion killing cases.  In other cases, he said, the accused persons kill because the other party has terminated or intends to terminate the relationship.

'In this case as I have found, the relationship was subsisting and even though the accused was not married to the deceased, it is unacceptable that he would still have felt offended by the conduct of the deceased a day before she died and after some people had intervened,' said the judge. 

He added that the accused also was a 22-year-old young man when he committed the offence and that generally speaking he must be punished less severely than more mature men.