The North West High Court has dismissed a Lesotho national’s attempt to persuade the court that he received an unfair punishment.
Langa Matona, 46, filed an appeal in August 2024, nine months after being convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
He said he did not deserve life imprisonment because he was a first-time offender. Matona added that he has a 22-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son.
First time offender
Judge Wessels handed down the judgment, saying the mitigating factors of Matona were not out of this world.
“The personal circumstances of the appellant are not unique and are to a great extent universally applicable to a greater proportion of society,” said Wessels.
Matona was convicted of murder along with his two co-accused by the Klerksdorp Magistrate’s Court. The conviction stems from an event in Kanana township outside Orkney on December 21 2021.
The court heard that someone had stolen goods from Matona’s house, and. As a result, he and his co-accused set out to find out who had done so.
Found his stolen goods at deceased’s place
Eventually Matona located his belongings in a specific house, but the man was not present.
He searched for the thief, located him and assaulted him. The alleged thief died in hospital on the same day, from the injuries he sustained in the vicious attack.
Matona was charged with murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was also accused of being in South Africa unlawfully, and he pleaded guilty to this offence. Matona was sentenced to 12 months in jail for this conviction. And it had to be served simultaneously with the life sentence issued for murder.
Matona’s notice of appeal criticises only the life sentence given as a result of the murder conviction.
Life sentence upheld
According to the notice of appeal, Matona said his personal circumstances were compelling and substantial. And that the court misdirected itself in finding that such factors did not justify a reduction from the mandated minimum term of life imprisonment.
As a second ground of appeal, Matona advanced that the sentence of life imprisonment was shockingly inappropriate in the circumstances and out of proportion to the totality of the accepted facts in mitigation.
