Online Reporter
A SOUTH African landlady, who facilitated the savage rape of her Zimbabwean tenant by two men EIGHTEEN years ago, has lost her appeal against conviction.However, her life sentence has been reduced.
She was ordered to serve TWELVE years in jail, backdated from 2016, by a court in Bloemfontein.
The two rapists burnt the Zimbabwean woman with cigarette stubs and threatened her with a knife as they repeatedly raped her in Bloemfontein in 2008.
A court in Bloemfontein heard that the gang targeted and abused the woman simply because she was a ZIMBABWEAN.
Nyaleng Taaibosch, the landlady, had ordered the two men, who attacked and raped her tenant, to also KILL HER.
The victim was 29 at the time.
During the attack, the woman pleaded with the rapists to take whatever they wanted but spare her life.
The gang responded that they were going to show her that this was Bloemfontein.
They raped her repeatedly.
At some point she asked the two rapists for a glass of water.
She was told to go and drink water in the kitchen. She managed to open the window and escape almost half naked.
She ran to her friend’s house, where she had her hair braided earlier that day.
Taiboos was convicted alongside Shuping Sydney Gopane after the court found that she encouraged the two men to rape and kill the complainant, whom she had housed as a tenant.
She was sentenced to life in prison but appealed against her conviction.
She lost the appeal this week although the Free State High Court has reduced her life sentence to 12 years in prison.
The appeal court found that Taaibosch’s conduct made her an accomplice to the rape and that her conviction should stand.
The court, however, found that her sentence required reconsideration because she was not present when the rape took place and did not personally inflict the injuries suffered by the complainant.
It held that these circumstances amounted to substantial and compelling circumstances justifying a departure from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment.
Tenant attacked after returning home
The incident happened in Bloemfontein in October 2008.
On the day of the incident, she had left with Taaibosch’s seven-year-old daughter to go braid their hair at a friend’s place.
They returned around 9pm and found Taaibosch with her boyfriend and other people inside the house.
The complainant testified that Taaibosch pointed her out to the men and told them they could do whatever they wanted with her before killing her.
The judgment stated that Taaibosch told the men that the complainant was a foreigner.
The appeal court found that these words indicated an intention that she be raped.
Taaibosch then took her daughter, and they left the house with the other occupants, leaving the complainant with the two men.
Taaibosch locked the door from outside.
aaibosch and only one of the men were arrested.
The High Court rejected Taaibosch’s argument that her words did not amount to an instruction to rape the complainant.
The judgment said the words she used before leaving the house, coupled with what happened immediately afterwards, supported the inference that she intended to facilitate the sexual assault.
Taaibosch, who was 54 at the time of the sentencing proceedings, was a widow with four children, one of whom was a minor.
She worked as a domestic worker earning R850 a month and was a first offender. – H-Metro Reporter/IOL
Mathew Masinge