The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has brought to a close a tragic story that began with three “friends” going out for drinks one night 16 years ago and ended with a murder.
On Sunday, July 19, 2009, Boitumelo Caleb Moloto and his friend, Kgomotso Naphtally Phutsoane, met Shimane Isaac Mafoko, who was driving his car. The three spent the night tavern-hopping before one of them conceived a dark plan.
Motolo persuaded Phutsoane that they should rob Mafoko of the car. The plan was set in motion when Moloto asked Mafoko to drive them home.
En route, at the Sun City T-junction, Phutsoane asked Mafoko to pull over, pretending he needed to relieve himself.
As Phutsoane alighted, Moloto, who was in the back seat, strangled Mafoko with a shoelace.
Phutsoane then joined in, and the two men choked their drinking companion until he lost consciousness.
Believing him to be dead, they lifted Mafoko’s body and threw him into the boot of his own car.
Moloto took the wheel and drove towards a friend’s village. But before they arrived, a horrifying realisation dawned: Mafoko was still alive and conscious in the boot. Moloto stopped the car and opened the boot.
Mafoko, in a final, desperate moment, confronted his attackers, asking them what they were doing. The response was more brutality.
Phutsoane tripped Mafoko, causing him to fall. Moloto then picked up a rock and hit him on the forehead.
The lust for murder unquenched, Moloto asked Phutsoane to help him lift a bigger rock, which they dropped onto Mafoko’s head. As he bled profusely, they loaded him back into the boot.
Then, the spirit realm began to intervene.
A tyre burst, and with no spare wheel, the two men decided to drive on, but a puddle of mud ahead near Kanana waited.
There, they abandoned the stuck vehicle with Mafoko, who was still mumbling incoherently, trapped in the boot.
In a brazen act, the pair flagged down a police van, falsely reporting that they had been hijacked. Their lie unravelled the next morning when police found the car with Mafoko’s body inside.
Under questioning, Moloto confessed, leading to his arrest.
Both men pleaded guilty to murder and robbery. The trial court sentenced them to life imprisonment for murder and 15 years for robbery.
Their appeals, however, were heard separately by different courts, leading to starkly different outcomes.
Phutsoane’s sentence was reduced to 22 years for murder and 10 years for robbery. Moloto’s appeal was dismissed, his life sentence confirmed.
The SCA, in a judgment delivered on Wednesday, brought the long-delayed legal saga to an end.
The court found that the brutality of the crime—a “very, very ugly act of criminality” involving three separate attempts on Mafoko’s life—outweighed Moloto’s personal circumstances.
The court emphasised that he was the mastermind, the one who instigated the robbery and orchestrated the prolonged and cruel murder.
While the differing sentences for the two co-accused created a perception of unequal treatment, the SCA found no miscarriage of justice.
It concluded that the judicial process had been followed, and the horrific nature of the offence justified the ultimate sentence for Moloto.
The tragic story that began with three men sharing a drink ended with one dead and two serving long prison terms, their friendship having culminated in a heinous crime that the courts have now finally laid to rest.
