Thabo Sekabate, sentenced to seven years for murdering his daughter's alleged rapist, has had his conviction overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which found insufficient evidence to uphold the original ruling.
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A father, who was sentenced to seven years behind bars for the murder of his daughter’s alleged rapist, will walk free after the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld his appeal against his conviction and sentence this week.
Thabo Sekabate was convicted of a count of murder in the regional magistrate’s court, Evander, on August 3, 2022.
The conviction came after the State charged him for an incident which occurred on April 14, 2021, at or near Lesley in the regional district of Mpumalanga.
It was alleged that the father, who was out on bail pending the outcome of the SCA appeal, inflicted a single stab wound with a sharp object or knife on the left upper leg of Sakhile Ntuli (the deceased).
The SCA found that the State did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and set aside his conviction and sentence.
Prior to his appeal at the SCA, Sekabate’s appeal against his conviction and sentence failed at the Mpumalanga Division of the High Court, Middelburg, when the court “declined to interfere with the sentence imposed by the trial court”.
According to court details, Sekabate was informed by his wife that his daughter had been raped by the deceased.
“His daughter informed him that Mondli Masuku (Masuku) knew the deceased. He drove his vehicle to the home of Masuku, who then accompanied him to the deceased’s home. On arrival at the deceased’s home, Masuku went into the house to call the deceased. In the yard of the deceased, a scuffle broke out between Sekabate and the deceased. Masuku tried to separate the applicant from the deceased. In the scuffle, the deceased sustained a ‘stab wound of the left upper leg, 2.54cm stab wound,” the court judgment read.
The stab wound was recorded in the post-mortem report as the cause of death.
As a witness during court proceedings, Masuku testified that he witnessed no stabbing and was the one who was positioned between both the father and alleged rapist to defuse the physical confrontation and at some point, had to physically restrain the father.
Sekabate submitted to the court that he only had his car keys in his hands when he went into the yard of the deceased.
“Further, he noted in his peripheral vision that the deceased came at him to assault him, and as a kung fu master, he performed a karate movement to defend himself against the attack. Thereafter, he saw the deceased holding his thigh, which was bleeding. At no stage did he see any object that could have caused the injury to the deceased,” the court document read.
SCA Justice Wendy Hughes said the medical evidence presented by the State did not take its case any further.
“More significantly, the medico-legal report, which although not being clear, was simply handed in without calling the author thereof, records that ‘the stab wound (was) behind the aspect of left upper leg’... It is difficult to discern the basis on which the trial court based its conclusion to convict the applicant of murder. It therefore boggles the mind as to how the high court, considering the aforesaid criticism, concluded that the trial court was correct in finding that the State had established that the applicant unlawfully and intentionally, in the form of dolus eventualis, caused the death of the deceased. In my view, this is yet another misdirection by the high court.
“An injury was indeed inflicted upon the deceased; however, how the injury was caused and who caused that injury has not been proven by the State beyond a reasonable doubt. This failure creates a great deal of speculation about how the injury could have been inflicted, by whom, and at what stage,” said Hughes.
chevon.booysen@inl.co.za