Crash bus driver seeks mitigation
2013-02-27 21:40
Cape Town - Correctional supervision would be
inappropriate for the driver in a Western Cape bus crash that claimed 23 lives,
the Cape Town Regional Court heard on Wednesday.
Siza Nonama was driving a bus from Leeu-Gamka to Cape
Town in May, 2010, when it crashed near De Doorns in the early hours of the
morning.
He is to be sentenced on 23 counts of culpable homicide.
The proceedings before magistrate Bruce Langa resumed on
Wednesday.
Legal Aid defence lawyer Wimpie Strauss handed in a
correctional supervision report, concluding that a sentence of correctional
supervision would be inappropriate for Nonama.
This involves a brief period of imprisonment, after which
the offender is released into a period of house arrest, and has to perform
community service.
A second option is house arrest and community service,
without imprisonment.
Strauss said Nonama's failing health slowed him down
physically, and left him severely out of breath, prevented him from performing
community service.
As community service was an integral part of the
sentence, correctional supervision was out of the question.
Nonama has a licence to drive light motor vehicles, but
not buses.
In Wednesday's proceedings, Nonama admitted he had driven
at a speed of 80km/h going down the Hex River Pass in wet conditions, when the
speed limit for heavy vehicles was 60.
Asked how he felt about the tragedy, he said: "I am
not happy about it. From the day that the accident happened, I have not felt
good, and I keep thinking about it."
He said it would have been better for him to have died in
the smash as well, "rather than to suffer like this".
He added: "I am very sorry for the families of those
who died."
Asked by prosecutor Willem Tarantal what he meant by
"suffer like this", he said: "I am sorry for what I did... sorry
for killing so many people."
Tarantal asked: "Are you not sorry for the position
in which you have landed yourself - being an accused in court?"
Nonama replied: "You are correct; it was never my
intention to be in this place."
Tarantal: "On that particular morning, you were not
allowed to drive a bus - you only had a licence for a light vehicle. Why were
you driving the bus?"
Nonama said he was not aware, at the time of the incident
which he was not allowed to drive a bus.
It was only after the accident that he became aware that
his licence did not include buses.
The case continues on 26 March.
- SAPA
