I was unfairly sentenced - murder suspect

ISAIAH MOREWAGAE
Staff Writer | Tuesday January 17, 2012 00:00

Mpho Mathumo argues that the High Court judge who sentenced him erred in failing to apply mitigating factors when sentencing him. He submitted that the trial court only mentions the factors but does not show how it applied them.

Mathumo submitted that the trial court erred in its subtractions formula in its final judgement. 'Further the trial court has exceeded the maximum number of years of imprisonment which these kind of cases ought to be applied,' Mathumo submitted.

He stressed that the trial court wrongly applied the sentencing formula by adding three years on top of the 15 years without showing cause of any aggravating factors. 'That the correct application was the subtractions side not the additional side, this is so because the facts of the case shows that there have been only mitigating factors and that there is no aggravating factors,' Mathumo submitted.

Therefore, Mathumo added, that the court had no reason to add more years on the recommended 15 years. Mathumo stressed that the trial court had clearly failed to follow the practise as recognised in similar cases.He further urged that the trial court should have also taken into consideration that he (Mathumo) did not use any weapon when murdering the deceased. Had this been considered, Mathumo urged, a lesser sentence could have been reached.