KZN High Court sentences three for Nkandla child murders

The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) High Court sitting in Mtunzini in northern part of the province has sentenced three people for the murders of two minor children in Nkandla in 2020.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson in KZN, Natasha Ramkisson-Kara says among the convicted criminals is a mother to a 10-year-old.

The third accused is a pastor.

Ramkisson-Kara says the first and third accused were sentenced to 25 years imprisonment and the second accused was sentenced to 15 years.

“In sentencing them the court deviated from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment saying that the case had an unusual factual matrix in that the accused believed the accused were possessed by demons and inflicted the assault in the process of driving out the demons from the deceased. The court found this to be compelling circumstances to deviate from life imprisonment further, the court found that the accused held varying levels of culpability in the offense hence the differences in the sentences they received,” Ramkisson-Kara adds