Killers of two Cape Town law enforcement officers get double life sentences

On Wednesday, Ndumiso Lutshetu (18), Ashwin Kennedy (22), Bongani Mvamveki (36) and Malibongwe Witbooi (35) were handed double life sentences by the Western Cape High Court for the murders of City of Cape Town law enforcement officers Jan Nieuwenhuys and Simthembile Nyangiwe on 4 September 2019.

The two officers were members of the city’s Rapid Response Unit based in Parow.

The four killers were each handed two life sentences plus 60 years’ direct imprisonment.

The other sentences consist of 15 years’ direct imprisonment for two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, 15 years’ direct imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms and 15 years’ direct imprisonment for illegal possession of ammunition.

Judge Daniel Thulare ordered the sentences for the two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of ammunition to run concurrently with the sentences for the murders.

When handing down sentence, Judge Thulare took aim at educators, principals and officials of the Department of Basic Education, raising concerns that Lutshetu, Kennedy and Witbooi were all kept in the lower phase of schooling until the age of 17 and Mvamveki until the age of 23 before dropping out without any educational or vocational support.

“There is merit in the observations of counsel that most accused persons found guilty of violent crimes, especially gang-related violent crimes in the Cape Flats, are Foundation Phase school dropouts. Most, if not all, including the accused before me, have not passed Grade 7. This cannot be allowed to continue unabated.”

Nieuwenhuys and Nyangiwe were sitting in their police vehicle at Sweet Home Farms in Samora Machel, Cape Town, when they were shot. They were guarding the site and protecting workers at a city construction project carried out by Usher Constructions.

School dropouts

Judge Thulare said, “It seems to me that all four accused were children who faced various learning barriers that hindered their progress. Counsel for the accused argued for the court to consider the absence of a proper account from the State, not in the sense of the prosecuting authority, but in the sense of the Republic of South Africa, on how it treats school Foundation Phase learners who face learning barriers.”

Judge Thulare said counsel for the accused could not be faulted for urging the court to call out the failure of the State to explain its response to barriers that hinder educational progress, especially of young people who end up as perpetrators of serious, violent and often deadly crimes.

He said there was a “need for educators, principals and, if needs be, accounting officers within the Department of Basic Education to come and account for their mitigating interventions, if any, including on cognitive, emotional, social and environmental factors that hindered the educational progress of their learners who ended up as easy targets for recruitment by street gangs.

“Courts cannot and should not condone a ‘good riddance by omission’ when it comes to human beings. No one belongs in the ‘human waste disposal bin’ in a progressive society. As it turns out, that ‘human waste disposal bin’ bred anti-social behaviour and has made the Cape Flats the most dangerous place to raise children, especially boy children, in the republic.

“As the accused have shown in this matter, boy children thrown into a ‘human waste disposal bin’ by being offloaded from non-responsive basic education, without any intervention, to street gangs, have now become not only a danger to society, but actually are bold enough to challenge the authority of the state to such an extent that in broad daylight they were so brazen as to disarm the state’s armed forces by killing law enforcement officers to secure firearms to use in their criminal activities.”

The judge found that the murders of the officers were planned and the accused had decided to shoot to kill.

“One must contextualise the developments to understand the message from street gangs. The City of Cape Town struggled with attacks on those who worked on the construction sites where the city was active with projects. The scene of the shooting of the law enforcement officers was such a construction site,” said Judge Thulare.

“The message from the street gang to the city was simply that, ‘Even with your deployment of law enforcement officers, you can’t stop us, for we will kill and rob your guards in broad daylight.’ It seems that the crime was intended to intimidate the city into submission to the gang’s dictates.”

Sentence welcomed 

Eric Ntabazalila, Western Cape National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, said the two officers were guarding workers of Usher Construction at the construction site and had just returned from lunch when the accused pounced. Their two colleagues, in another vehicle on the other side of the construction site, heard gunshots and found their bodies riddled with bullets.

Welcoming the sentence, the NPA said, “An attack on law enforcement is an attack on the state, and it cannot be overemphasised how important it is to ensure that those who commit such crimes receive the maximum sentences our courts can hand down. The NPA will be vigorous in its pursuit of perpetrators of such crimes to ensure their sentences serve as a deterrent.” DM