Outrage As SA Court Drastically Cuts Jail Term For Duo In The Infamous "Coffin Assault" Case
South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal has drastically reduced jail time for two farmers, Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson, who forced a black man into a coffin and threatened to kill him.
Oosthuizen and Jackson had been sentenced to 16 and 19 years for attempted murder and other crimes but the court set aside the attempted murder and intimidation conviction and reduced the sentence to 5 years.
Passing the judgment, Judge Yvonne Thokozile Mbatha said that she considered that the aim of sentencing which is to deter, retribute and rehabilitate. She said:
This Court has found that the appellants should have been convicted of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm instead of attempted murder.
Mbatha also handed each man a one-year sentence for kidnapping, while Jackson received an additional year’s imprisonment for defeating the ends of justice by assaulting the sole witness in an attempt to stop him from testifying and these shorter terms will run concurrently with the five years.
The duo was arrested and charged with attempted murder after of them shoving Victor Mlotshwa into a coffin accusing him of stealing copper cables from their farm in the eastern Mpumalanga province went viral.
More: AFP News Agency
