Pic by Kristy Kolberg
Former security guard Zipho Nqoko has been sentenced to an effective 30-years behind bars for the kidnapping and murder of eight-year-old year-old Imange Jantjies in Thembalethu, George.
Sentence was handed down in the George Circuit High Court on Thursday after Nqoko was earlier found guilty of murdering the little boy in August last year.
24-year-old Nqoko was sentenced to five years in prison on the charge of kidnapping and another 25 years for the premeditated murder of Jantjies.
His body was found with multiple stab wounds in the accused's shack in Zone 7, Thembalethu, on the 19th of August last year.
The child's brutal death followed an alleged domestic altercation between Nqoko and the child's mother, Anne-lisiwe Jantjies, who he was dating at the time.
On the day of the murder, Anne-lisiwe had gone to the Thembalethu police station to report her child as missing.
She testified that the accused arrived at the police station too, without her son, and told her that he had killed Imange.
During sentencing, Judge Derek Wille said he found enough substantial and compelling evidence to deviate from the minimum prescribed life sentence for the murder.
Among the factors, Judge Wille said, were that the accused was a young first offender who came from a difficult socio-economic background without any proper role models.
He said Nqoko never knew his father and his mother died when he was 11-years-old.
