Quarter of century behind bars for muti finger hacker

ZOLA “TWENTY” Bonani, who hacked two fingers off the hand of a Komga woman to make muti, received far more potent medicine from the state – 25 years in jail.

Bonani, 29 – one of three men involved in the 2009 attack on Nongetheni Mtshini, 62, and her daughter Vuyelwa Stofile, 23 – was sentenced yesterday to an effective 25 years by East London regional magistrate Dan Ngoqo.

Bonani, a farm labourer outside Gonubie, posted a lonely figure in the dock for the duration of his trial, which started last week. His two accomplices, identified in court only as Thembani and Xolani, remain at large.

Ngoqo found him guilty on Tuesday of robbery with aggravating circumstances and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

He sentenced Bonani to 17 years for the first count of robbery with aggravating circumstances, and eight years for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Both defence attorney Mkhuseli Nosilela and state prosecutor Khaya Makwakwa yesterday asked Ngoqo to make the two sentences run concurrently.

However, Ngoqo said he would not do it and he ruled that the two sentences would run one after the other.

Ngoqo also refused Bonani’s request for leave to appeal the conviction and sentence, saying no other court would reach a different conclusion.

Ngoqo said the attack on the defenceless Mtshini, in her shack on a farm near Gonubie, was premeditated “by people whom she knew very closely and who were supposed to be the ones protecting her”.

Bonani was “not one of the easiest witnesses in answering questions” and was “very evasive and clearly misled court on clear aspects” during his testimony.

Bonani was “a lucky man to escape with only a charge of serious assault and not attempted murder” which would have brought a much heftier sentence.

“This attack was purely to subdue the victim, who was left deformed and disabled, in a bid to take whatever you wanted in her house,” said the outraged magistrate.

Ngoqo said South Africa was going through an unprecedented wave of violent crime, especially against women and others who were vulnerable, and if courts did not hand down hefty sentences to offenders “there could be a rise in vigilantism”.

Arguing in mitigation for a lesser sentence, Nosilela said his client was relatively young when the crime was committed in 2009 and that liquor had played a huge role in the incident as the three men were drinking the entire night before the incident.

He pleaded for a suspended sentence for his client.

Makwakwa said Bonani had shown no remorse and had to spend a long time in jail, “because the injuries he inflicted to Mtshini will remind her of the incident for the rest of her life”. —