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Thulani Ndlovu Chronicle Reporter
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld death sentences against ten people accused of committing gruesome and callous murders around the country.Njabulo Tshuma, Vusa Mugobo Ndlovu, Zacharia Amos Simango, Nicholas Ncube, Michael Goodluck Nleya, Bright Kwashira, Cloudius Mutawo, Farai Lawrence Ndlovu, Wellington Gadzira and Norman Sibanda were all found guilty of murder with actual intent.
Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba with five others agreeing found no extenuating circumstances.
The ten had all appealed against both convictions and sentences.
In the first case, Nleya on 8 October 2010, killed Blessed Msebele a nine-year-old boy in a busy area in the Mnyamana area in Plumtree.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge.
In his warned and cautioned statement, Nleya gave a graphic description of the murder. “Before I killed him I said God would forgive me. I assaulted him on the head and at the back of the neck, he then fell down.”
He added, “I assaulted him again and he died. I fetched firewood and made a fire and I threw him into the fire so that there would be no evidence.”
The Supreme Court found the evidence against Nleya overwhelming.
“The finding by the High Court of guilty of murder with actual intent cannot be faulted. He is undeserving of mercy and a lesser sentence would not have met the justice of the case,” said Justice Malaba.
In the second case Kwashira and an accomplice were convicted of murder with actual intent for robbing and killing Ommund Peter Sivertsen, 71, by the High Court on 3 July 2006. He was aged between 19 and 20 years at the time of the offence.
The Supreme Court refused to dismiss the death penalty on the grounds of youthfulness. “We have considered all the factors which may be regarded as extenuating and weighed them against the aggravating factors.
“Youthfulness, as already indicated, can be extenuating but in this case the assault was gruesome. It was an attack by two people on an old man aged 71 years using metal rods so the sentence is upheld,” said Justice Malaba.
Mutawo of Maushe Village under Chief Njelele in Gokwe, aged 19 at the time was sentenced to death for murdering his father,71.
The young man knew that his late father had sold a cow. He then armed himself with an axe to rob him of the money. Maushe stalked his father for three kilometres before he pounced and struck a severe blow with the axe on the centre of the head. He then emptied his father’s pockets before disappearing into the bush.
Justice Malaba said youthfulness in the case was not extenuating given the way the murder was executed.
“The careful planning and the courage to attack his own father in the manner he did for money and leaving him for dead are factors, which show that the actions of the appellant were not consistent with youthfulness,” he said.
Ndlovu, 23, and Gadzira, 37, were both convicted of murder for killing Michael Sunderland, 37, and Geoffrey Andrew Povey, 65. They both pleaded not guilty.
The State’s case was that the two accused told Sunderland and Povey that there was a gold rush near Kwekwe River. They got onto the back of the pair’s vehicle. The two accused then took the opportunity to lace Sunderland and Povey’s drinking water with cyanide.
Sunderland died soon after drinking the poisoned water while Povey, who also drank the poisoned water, fell sick and was later fatally struck with a blunt object by the two accused.
Tshuma and Vusa were found guilty of murder of Timothy Mugobo with actual intent. Mugobo was Vusa’s elder brother while Tshuma is Vusa’s nephew. The two attacked Mugobo following a misunderstanding during a ritual.
They struck him three times with an axe on the face and he died on the spot.
Nicholas Ncube, 25, of number 1459 DRC Hwange killed his wife after she indicated she wanted to divorce him.
Ncube struck his 22-year-old wife Kelens Mudimba several times with stones on the side of her head. He also stabbed her with a knife once on the left side of the chest.
She died on the spot.
The Supreme Court which noted that the case was a crime of passion, found no extenuating circumstances.
Online Reporter