‘Breathe in my liberty’
● Convicted Soweto car thief Moses Thamane will never take his freedom for granted again.
“I am going to sit on my stoep this Freedom Day and breathe in my freedom. I am going to be with my family and just be grateful,” he said.
Arrested moments after stealing a Toyota Corolla in Johannesburg in 2017, Thamane, now 53, was sentenced to seven years in Leeuwkop Prison in Johannesburg. He was released in March.
Before his arrest, Thamane was running a successful business ferrying high school children between Soweto and Sandton.
“I don’t know what came over me. I was making good money … to this day I cannot tell you why I did what I did,” he said.
He said the lockdown had made prison even worse. “With families not visiting, you lose even more freedom. People are so desperate inside.”
Thamane said being in prison made him realise how much he had cost his family.
“You sit there for four years and you realise how you have wasted your life and have taken away very important things from your family, such as their ability to afford to go to school. You realise the harm that you have done to your family. You realise how important it is to rehabilitate yourself.”
His focus now is on turning his life around, and he and his wife plan to open a neighbourhood store selling footwear.