Death more fitting for Lindley killers - NPA official
2011-07-28 23:25
Mike van Rooyen, Volksblad
Bloemfontein - "Cruel, barbaric, gruesome and unnecessary."
That's how Judge George Wright described the murder of a Free State family on their farm, before sentencing the attackers to a total of eight life sentences and an additional 176 years.
Attie Potgieter, his wife Wilna and 2-year old Wilmien were killed on their farm Tweefontein, outside Lindley, in December 2010.
The spokesperson for the NPA in the Free State, Medupe Simasiku, said the sentence was the harshest allowed in terms of the Constitution.
"But , humanly speaking, a death sentence would probably have been more appropriate," he added.
"They could have taken everything they wanted to, without killing the people. Why the mother and the baby?"
It was not necessary to kill the family, said Judge Wright in the Free State High Court.
Paul van Staden, Wilna's dad, and his daughter Susan Nortjé, were in court during sentencing.
Nortjé was extremely upset that the youngest of the killers, Diphapang Motaung, was given a more lenient sentence.
He was a minor at the time of the murders.
"He is just as guilty!
"Had Wilmien lived, he would have been out on parole by the time she turned 20."
