Bank robbers’ sentences reduced

“THE appellants are professional bank robbers. They robbed banks at gunpoint for a living. They were not very good at it, and they did not kill or physically injure anyone.”

This was the prologue to a judgment delivered in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, during which two Zimbabwean nationals, who admitted they were professional bank robbers, appealed against their sentences.

Khumbulani Sibanda and Bongani Moyo, both 30, and best friends, decided when they came to South Africa to embark on a career of crime to support their families back in Zimbabwe.

The pair pleaded guilty to an array of charges, including six of armed robbery.

Sibanda was sentenced to an effective 55 years’ imprisonment, while Moyo got 62. Both left their families behind in Zimbabwe and came to South Africa to escape the grinding poverty. Both said they chose to live a life of crime and didn’t have any loyalty towards South Africa. “In my view they behaved like predators who regarded South Africa as a resource to be exploited,” Judge Neil Tuchten said.

The men joined a gang of armed robbers shortly after they entered South Africa, and executed a number of bank robberies in Gauteng and the North West.

Using firearms, they forced their victims to hand over cash, and they collected about R235 000 between them.

The pair felt the effective sentences meted out to them were shockingly harsh.

Judge Tuchten noted that the Supreme Court of Appeal in the past criticised the so-called Methuselah sentences. These are so long that the prisoner will have no chance of parole.

Judge Tuchten cut their term to 35 years’ imprisonment each.