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A 30-year-old woman has been jailed for 20 years after pleading guilty to shooting her policeman lover in 2022.
The National Prosecuting Authority said Zanele Mkhonto was sentenced in the Mpumalanga Division of the High Court on Thursday for the murder of 47-year-old Sergeant Mandlenkosi Thwala (47), from Ka Bokweni police in Mpumalanga.
NPA regional spokesperson, Monica Nyuswa, said Mkhonto pleaded guilty last November 2023 and was subsequently convicted of murder.
She said she told the court that she was in a romantic relationship with the deceased and they lived together from January to July 2022 in Gedlembane in Pienaar about 30 km’s from Mbombela.
Nyuswa said when their relationship became volatile, Mkhonto returned to her parent’s home.
She said in August 2022, she went back to the deceased in Gedlembane where an altercation ensued.
“The deceased fell asleep and the accused took the deceased's service pistol and fatally shot him several times while asleep in bed,” she said.
Mkhonto later confessed to a friend and she was subsequently arrested.
Nyuswa said acting judge Sheila Msibi found “substantial and compelling circumstances” to justify deviating from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment.
