In an unusual judgement concerning what is commonly called “passion killing”, Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo has sentenced Golebaganye Kefakae to death for the murder of his former girlfriend, Mammie Dikube, on 5 October, 2005.
Passing sentence, Dibotelo said that the defence counsel, Obert Ajayi, had submitted that Kefakae had an extended love relationship with Dikube that spanned over a period of 9 years, from 1996 to 2005, when the relationship ended and they parted.
In addition, they had two children and Kefakae found it difficult to accept that their relationship had ended and that the mother of her two children had an affair with another man.
Ajayi also submitted that the accused feared that he would lose touch with the mother of his children as well as his children and that this resulted with him being consumed by excessive jealousy and feeling rejected.
The lawyer, Dibotelo said, had also referred the Court to two murder cases that were committed against former lovers where the accused were given custodial sentences but said that though he accepts that the two cases he had referred to were similar, the murders in the two cases were committed during the subsistence of the love affairs, whereas in the present case, murder was committed some nine to ten months after the relationship had been terminated.
Dibotelo said that though the accused and the deceased had two children, there is no evidence or suggestion that they were still lovers.
The accused, the judge further said, had submitted that he was raised by a single parent and deprived of fatherly love, which was a painful experience, and further said that he had a genuine fear of never seeing his children after the termination of the relationship, had then started drinking and taking drugs after he was deprived of the opportunity to be with and exhibit his love for his children but that all this failed to help him.
Judge Dibotelo said that, though he accepts that some of the factors mentioned by the accused constitute extenuating factors on his behalf, there were, on the other hand, aggravating factors as well, which outweigh the extenuating circumstances.
The judge said that the accused had told the Court in his own evidence that the relationship between the two was terminated in January 2005 when they parted and that the offence was then committed at the beginning of October 2005, some 9 to 10 months after the relationship had ended.
This, he said, leaves no doubt in his mind that the accused had been planning over the period to murder the deceased and that this murder was, beyond doubt, premeditated.
Dibotelo said that, on the night of the incident, Kefakae waited along the deceased’s route home and suddenly emerged from the stream armed with an axe and knife which he used to murder her.
When time came for him to explain his deeds, he said, Kefakae then sought to shift blame for the deceased’s demise to her younger brother, saying that it was him who assaulted and chopped the deceased with an axe, inflicting the fatal injuries on her.
This, the judge said, was false as evidence pointed directly at him as the murderer.
The accused, Dibotelo said, had deprived the children, aged 6 and 3, of the love and care of their mother at such a tender age.
He noted that Kefakae never showed remorse for his actions and that during his trial he never suggested that he committed murder because he had been deprived of fatherly love when he was young or that he was being deprived regular access to his children.
The judge said that any extenuating circumstances which exist in favour of the accused are insufficient to reduce his moral blameworthiness and are far outweighed by the aggravating factors that are present in the case.
Unangoni Tema of the Directorate of Public Prosecution was prosecuting whilst Dave Ajay appeared for the defence.
