dyton mupawaenda
YESTERDAY we led with the story of Leo Matibe who is an ex-cop and has been in jail for 16 years now.
Until recently, he was a death row prisoner who had been sentenced to death for his part in the murder of a South African man in Bulawayo in 2007.
Matibe was convicted for the killing of Martinus Jacobus Oosthuyse, who was shot in the head in his car, in a horrible act that a High Court judge described as a “cold-blooded, beastly murder, committed without any conscience.”
Matibe and his colleague Collin Tsikidze went on to dump the body.
On September 26, 2007, shortly after midnight, Oosthuye, who was working in Livingstone, parked his Nissan Sentra, which had South Africa registration plates, at Pines Brothers Supermarket along 8th Avenue in Bulawayo.
He decided to take a nap.
Matibe, Tsikidze and Leonard Dube awakened him and produced a police identity card and advised Oosthuyse that he was under arrest for wrongful parking.
They ordered him to drive to the police station to pay a fine.
Instead of directing him to Bulawayo Central Police station, they directed him to the corner of Jason Moyo Street and 2nd Avenue, where they stopped him in the middle of the road.
Tsikidze produced a pistol and Dube disembarked from the vehicle and ran away.
Tsikidze shot Oosthuyse in the head and pulled his body to the passenger’s seat, got behind the steering wheel and the deceased’s car to Bedminton Farm in Nyamandlovu where they dumped his body.
Matibe was 26 at the time when he committed the crime.
In his first newspaper interview since being sent to jail, that he was sorry for the crime.
He said he regrets committing the murder because life is precious and should not be taken away.
He says he is a different man from the one who made headlines when Oosthuyse was killed in Bulawayo.
It’s good to hear Matibe saying that he is now a reformed man.
That is what prisons are there for —to help people like Matibe to understand that what they did was wrong and help them on their recovery path.
Matibe’s confession, though, will not help the Oosthuyse family who lost a father and a relative.
However, it helps send a powerful message to many people in this country that crime doesn’t pay and the law will always catch up with you.
Matibe thought he had dribbled law enforcement agents by dumping the body of Oosthuyse at a farm but our hardworking police officers were able to locate the place where the body was dumped.
Matibe has probably seen the light and has genuinely transformed into a nice guy.
But what we cannot forget is that he murdered someone in cold blood and for that he should remain in jail. He is not lying anymore because he has admitted that he committed the murder.
But that is not enough because what he did is the worst sin anyone can commit.
Online Reporter