Outrage after wife spared jail after killing cop husband

THE Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has called for harsher sentences from the courts for those convicted of killing police officers.

This comes after an Eastern Cape woman, Andiswa Nqiqi, 38, was sentenced to just three years correctional supervision in the Fort Beaufort Regional Court last week after she was found guilty of murdering her husband.

The woman shot dead her cop husband, Constable Wongama Nqiqi, in August 2021.

She event went to the extent of covering up the murder as a suicide.

She was sentenced to 36 months of correctional supervision, to be under house arrest for the duration of her correctional supervision; to engage in 16 hours of community service each month of her correctional supervision; five years’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years provided she does not get involved in violent crime again.

This sentence has angered Popcru, who said police killers should get sterner sentences.

It was learnt that the court was swayed by a social worker’s report, which found that since the woman had four minor children, it would adversely affect them if she was incarcerated.

“This is atrocious. She clearly got off lightly,” said Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said.

Popcru has had recent discussions which include the alarming killing rate of police officers.

He said more than 92 police officers were killed in the past year.

When releasing the third quarter crime statistics for the period October 2023 to December 2023, National Police Minister Bheki Cele, he said 22 police officers were killed during this period.

“Those who harbour police killers or are in any way involved in criminal activity related to police killings, will face the same consequences as the criminal who pulled the trigger,” Cele warned.

During the Policing Indaba in October last year, Mamabola said, Popcru proposed legislative amendments to consider police killings as treason as it was “a clear attack on the authority of the state”.

“This means there should be much harsher sentences, and bail should at all times be denied,” Mamabola said.

But, he did state the incident of the woman murdering her husband was quite unique.

“In most cases, police officers would be killed by people not directly related to them to acquire their firearms to perpetuate criminal activities, or at times for the cases that these officers would be investigating,” Mamabola said.