Online Reporter
“We will have to go back to court and relive the trauma of our daughter’s death, then suffer due to the mistakes of a magistrate. I am not yet ready to testify.”
These were the words of Winnie Motlodi from North West, South Africa after being informed that her daughter’s killer, who was freed on a technicality a year into his life sentence, will be rearrested and the case retried from scratch.
In May, the North West high court released William Mosiane after an appeal in which judges found that during his trial, the court was not properly constituted due to the absence of assessors. Assessors in a trial help determine the accused’s fitness to stand trial and assist the judicial officer in understanding the facts of the case.
Sowetan reported on Tuesday how Dimpho Motlodi’s father Charles was shocked to bump into Mosiane in Rustenburg two months after his release. The family had not been informed of his release, and they thought he was still in prison serving a life sentence for Dimpho’s murder.
On Wednesday, Motlodi said she learnt of the state’s decision to re-arrest and retry Mosiane during a radio interview.
Later, she said, an NPA official called her and informed her that Mosiane would be arrested and the case the case would go for a retrial.
“I feel like justice was not done, this means that whatever we said during the trial meant nothing. They need to rectify the mistakes of the magistrate regarding assessors and sentence him (Mosiane) accordingly, I don’t want to see him,” she said.
“Doing this again will open healing wounds. It will mean I will need to go through that painful process again and talk about how I saw my daughter lying dead after being shot? I am not ready, I will need counselling first.”
In March 2021, Mosiane fatally shot Dimpho five times in front of their son. As Dimpho lay on the ground bleeding to death, Mosiane took their then nine-year-old son and dumped him at the neighbour’s house.
He later handed himself to the police and was released on bail.
According to Motlodi, they took a protection order against Mosiane to not come close to his son. However, he broke it while on bail when he suddenly showed up at his son’s school.
“It was at the time that the child had asked to go to the bathroom and saw him. He quickly ran to another classroom and told a teacher that he had seen his father. He then fainted.”
Mosiane was warned never to go to the school again but he was never arrested.
Motlodi said while they were the ones who were hurt by Mosiane’s actions, he was the one who was offered counselling while they were left to deal with the pain alone. Even the child was never offered counselling, she said.
Mosiane was handed a life sentence during the trial but he appealed his conviction and sentence, accusing the magistrate, Paul Moeng, of having erred by not ensuring that there were assessors during the trial. He won.
Yesterday was Dimpho’s 31st birthday. Motlodi, who usually buys flowers and put them on her grave, did not visit the graveyard this time.
“I could not bring myself to go there. The flowers are here, I didn’t take them, the justice system is failing us.”
Sivenathi Gunya, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority in North West, said the provincial director of public prosecutions (DPP), Dr Rachel Makhari, had decided that Mosiane’s matter return to court, describing his release as an unfortunate turn of events.
He said Makhari will meet Motlodi’s family tomorrow to outline the process to be followed and also explain what happened in this case. Gunya said Makhari will also formally apologise to the family for not having informed them when Mosiane was released.
“In terms of Section 324 (c) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, this allows for a retrial of an accused whose conviction and sentence have been set aside on appeal due to a technical irregularity in the proceedings. The retrial will be before a differently constituted court,” Gunya said.-SowetanLIVE
