Judge shows Rohde no mercy

JUDGE Gayaat Salie-Hlophe showed zero tolerance when she sentenced Jason Rohde to 20 years behind bars this week for the “callous, brutal and shocking” murder of his wife Susan at Spier Hotel in July 2016.

Noting that South Africa had “become the femicide capital of the world” and that the crime was an “epidemic”, she quoted a past trial where a judge noted that the crime warranted a retributive sentence that would stand as a deterrent.

“You murdered Susan with the direct intention to kill her. She looked to you for protection. Instead you breached this trust, attacked and murdered her,” she said.

Judge Salie-Hlophe’s 18-page sentencing judgment expressed abhorrence for Rohde’s crimes.

“The suggestion (by your defence) is that your wife ought to have been more subservient and accepting of your infidelity and ought to have restrained her objections and interrogations. That she did not do this resulted in the perfect storm of your quarrel. She got killed and you ought to therefore get a lesser sentence.

“I cannot disagree more. This is a patriarchal and antiquated viewpoint which undermines a woman and in the context of intimate femicide a wife’s or girlfriend’s right to dignity and equality before the law.”

The judgment noted “extreme and shocking” aggravating circumstances that warranted a sentence exceeding the minimum 15 years.

“The injuries which you inflicted on your wife were successive and incremental until it was fatal. During this time and in the progress of killing her you would have had time to reflect and desist from your unlawful conduct. However, you carried on regardless.

“The extent of the force you used was so excessive that the injuries to her neck show clear grab and scratch marks and bruises on the surface of her skin in that area with deep haemorrhages in the underlying tissue layers caused by your thumb on the right side of her neck and the remaining fingers on the other side of her neck.

“Her ribcage had fractures illustrating how you had applied substantial force on her chest (most likely with your knee), while you manually strangled your wife. So severe was this force that she suffered a contusion to her lung, resulting in internal bleeding.

“The pillow you used to smother Susan with was done with repeated action, illustrated by the seepage of blood from the abrasion you caused on her left upper eyelid (by an earlier fist punch) which had come off on to pillow twice as you pushed down on her face repeatedly.

“With your force pressing down on her face, you deviated her nose to the right and caused her teeth to cut into the inside of her lower lip.

“It is significant and disturbing a fact that throughout this ordeal you did not call for medical assistance. When you ultimately did call for help you limited it to a handyman purely for the purpose of furthering the commission of your offences. At no stage do you question, hesitate or become ambivalent about murdering your wife. You forged ahead, unfettered nor restrained by conscience or reflection.”

Turning to Rohde’s conviction for defeating the ends of justice, Judge Salie-Hlophe also showed no tolerance for concealing his actions from his nearest and dearest, but also to two senior psychiatrists who testified.

“Naked and stripped of her dignity you dragged her from the bedroom, over the sisal rug, inflicting therewith more injuries to her body and undignifiedly dragged her through her faeces.

“You posed her for your alibi to see and to be shocked by her nakedness.

“This was exactly your staging plan, for others to be left with an image of a woman who killed herself.

Judge Salie-Hlophe was unforgiving about the psychological mind games that this played with his family.

“You left her loved ones to further suffer in their grief and speculate with anguish as to what motivated Susan in the taking of her own life.

“How it could be that she did not consider her love for her children and other loved ones and in turn their love for her when she chose to end her life?” the judge asked.

At no stage do you question, hesitate or become ambivalent about murdering your wife

Gayaat Salie-Hlophe

High court judge

News Agency (ANA) ARMAND HOUGH African JASON Rohde was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for murdering and staging the suicide of his wife Susan.|