Double life sentence for double rape of a minor – forty two years in jail for two rapes in one night

The Regional Court in Umlazi has on Friday, 12 May 2023 sentenced 27-year-old Sakhiso Cele to two terms of life imprisonment after the court had found him guilty of the double rape of a 13-year-old girl at an informal settlement in G Section in Umlazi.

On 05 September 2022 the mother of a 13-year-old victim was furious to learn that her daughter did not go to school and as she was chastising the child, she was shocked to learn that the child’s uncle had instructed the girl not to go to school. The crying child confessed to the mother that she was raped by her uncle on the night of 03 September 2022. Cele had lured his niece to his shack where he gagged her mouth and raped her. Investigations also unearthed that Cele had also raped the girl in a similar manner in 2021. The Umlazi Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit’s (FCS) meticulous investigations proved beyond reasonable doubt that the child was raped and Cele was arrested. After making several court appearances, Cele was removed from society and condemned to jail for the rest of his life.

In a separate incident, a 21-year-old man, Vusumuzi Mashaba Thabethe was handed a 46-year imprisonment sentence by the Esikhaleni Regional Court following his conviction for raping two women in one night in Esikhaleni. On the evening of 02 September 2021, Thabethe, who was 19-years-old at the time, met a 21-year-old woman whom he had proposed love to a day before without any success. At knife-point he dragged the woman from Mabuyeni to the bushes where he raped her. The rape nightmare continued when he forcefully took her to a nearby stream where he continued raping her before letting her go.

Few hours later that night, Thabethe broke into a house at Madaka area and dragged a woman, 12 years his senior to the bushes were he raped her at knife-point before robbing her of her cellphone. Investigations by the Esikhaleni FCS Unit positively pointed out Thabethe as the suspect and he was charged accordingly. He was also charged for kidnapping and house robbery.

These sentences are a clear indication that the South African Police Service in KwaZulu-Natal, through the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit, a specialised unit that probes crimes against women and children will continue to increase the heat on rapists and all those who perpetrate crimes against women and children, and ensure that rapists are removed from society, for good.

Source: South African Police Service