Comfort for the victims

ONGRATULATIONS to the criminal justice system for exemplary work in dispatching the killer of well-known KwaZulu-Natal businessman Nhlanhla Gasa to jail within a month of the murder.

Gasa, 62, was stabbed 12 times in his uMhlanga apartment after he allegedly made advances to his killer as they watched the news. His body was found in the Tugela River, under the John Ross Bridge, days after. His Jaguar, doused with petrol and torched by murderer Mbulelo Ntlauzana, 25, was located nearby.

This was a vile act, depriving a family of their father. They must have been sickened at the gory details in court of his savage end.

The only consolation is that justice here was swift and true. Gasa was murdered on March 25, then the killer fled to the Eastern Cape.

He returned to Durban and police arrested him on April 13. Ten days later he was walking down the concrete stairs from the dock in Durban Regional Court U to his punishment.

Magistrate Anand Maharaj gave him 30 years for murder, theft and malicious damage to property. At least the family had a system that worked as it should: efficiently, quickly, uncompromisingly.

Each criminal case has unique circumstances, differing degrees of complexity, twists and turns. In this one the accused pleaded guilty – the police had done their work well. This assisted the court process, and it was done in a day.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for too many investigations, prosecutions and trials. Evidence has not yet been heard, for instance, about the collision more than two years ago on Durban’s Athlone Bridge in which two women and a boy were killed. It is scheduled for October.

The Narandas murder trial, the marathon Boeremag trial, the so-called Pongola 26... there are many examples of dreadfully slow justice.

Much as justice delayed is justice denied for accused people, it is, too, for crime victims. It depends who holds it up.

C