Armed robber gets 20 years

A dangerous criminal, Zukisa Sibango, 28, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Atlantis Regional Court on charges including murder, escape from lawful custody, kidnapping and attempted murder.

Sibango, who was serving an unrelated prison sentence at the East London Correctional Centre, was part of an armed group that ambushed a private security vehicle and a truck en route to Cape Town International Airport from St Helena.

The two vehicles were transporting a consignment of legally cultivated abalone for export.

The robbery was committed while Sibango was on the run after he escaped from prison in 2016 on charges of murder and armed robbery in 2014.

Sibango appeared to lay low until April 2017, when he joined a gang of armed men who fired shots at the security vehicle escorting the truck.

“Both bullet-riddled vehicles were forced to stop,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Philani Nkwalase of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, or Hawks.

“The driver of the security vehicle was shot, but has since recovered.

“The truck driver was forced to proceed to Du Noon, where he was forced into the boot of the gang’s sedan.

The truck was off-loaded and later returned to the driver on the N7 near Morningstar.”

Nkwalase told The Citizen Sibango was rearrested in July 2017 in Gugulethu, Cape Town after being forensically linked to the abalone ambush.

Sibango was also charged for illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

He was charged in August 2018, and first appeared in court the next month.

Sibango on Friday pleaded guilty on all charges and entered into a plea agreement with the state. He was sentenced to an effective 20 years’ imprisonment and was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.

The sentences included seven years’ imprisonment for attempted murder, three years for a second attempted murder, 20 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances, five years for kidnapping, five years for unlawful possession of firearm and five years for unlawful possession of ammunition.

All of the sentences will run concurrently.