File
The National Prosecuting Authority in the Eastern Cape has secured a judgment that enables it to appeal the five-year sentence imposed on a man for raping a girl who was nine at the time.
NPA spokesperson, Luxolo Tyali, said the state had maintained that the sentence was too lenient after the Magistrate accepted the plea explanation of 45-year-old Siya Qongqo, that he was intoxicated at the time and didn’t even remember arriving at the victim’s home in June, 2021.
“Upon learning about the anomaly made by the Regional Court when sentencing Qongqo on 30 March 2022, the DPP approached the High Court for leave to appeal,” he said.
Tyali said the Provincial Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the lower court had erred in “placing an over-emphasis on the fact that Qonqgo had consumed alcohol and that he showed remorse.”
He said the prosecutor at the time had “alluded that it had the duty to sentence him to life, as prescribed by the Minimum Sentences Act.”
Tyali said the “granting of leave to appeal provides the DPP with the opportunity to make an appeal against the sentence to the full bench of the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court, where all (the) facts regarding the shockingly inappropriate sentence will be aired.”
