Rapist 'escapes' life sentence

2005-03-19 08:40

Pieter du Toit

Pretoria - A man who burnt a nine-year-old girl with a candle and then raped her was not jailed for life as the Act on Minimum Sentences prescribed, because the judge found it "shockingly inappropriate" in this case.

Oscar Ntimane, a 29-year-old Mozambican, was convicted in Pretoria High Court on charges of rape and housebreaking with the aim to rape.

He raped a nine-year-old girl in Rethabiseng outside Bronkhorstspruit in 2002.

Acting Judge Joshua Dolamo sentenced Ntimane to 20 years' for the rape and five years' for the housebreaking.

The girl had various serious injuries including a broken collarbone, grazes, bruises and internal vaginal injuries.

Ntimane knocked at the girl's door on the evening of February 2 2002, and asked her to go with him.

When she refused, he climbed through the window, burnt her hair and head with a candle, assaulted and then raped her.

She was kept in hospital for three weeks.

Compelling mitigating circumstances

Judge Dolamo acknowledged the girl's injuries were most serious and of such a nature that "they would not normally be associated with rape".

The law prescribes lifelong prison sentences for child rape, but the judge found there were substantial and compelling circumstances that called for a lighter sentence.

Ntimane's childhood during the Mozambican civil war was accepted as a mitigating circumstance.

He came to South Africa in 2001 to work as a carpenter and had two minor children.

Judge Dolamo said in his verdict he believed Ntimane showed remorse by pleading guilty on both charges, even if he did not testify.

The judge also took into account the trauma through which the young victim and her family had lived.

Judge Dolamo said because Ntimane was a first-time offender, the possibility of rehabilitation could not be excluded.

- Beeld