Jail term for Ma-Dickies leader

The 26-year-old Ndivhuwo Mavhetha, who was known as the gang leader of Ma-Dickies in the Makhado area, was recently sentenced to an effective 26-year jail term in the Thohoyandou Local Division of the Limpopo High Court.

Ndivhuwo, a resident of Tshikota, was sentenced to 26 years for murder and one year for assault.

During the trial, the court heard that the deceased, Tsepo Matamela (20), was with his lover when the accused approached them armed with a knife at the Five Rand Tavern at Madombidzha village on 10 June last year.

Without saying a word, Ndivhuwo jumped on Tsepo and stabbed him once in the head. The injured man ran away while bleeding profusely. The accused charged after him, but the deceased managed to outrun him. Tsepo rushed to the local clinic for treatment and the next morning he was transferred to LTT Memorial Hospital, where he later passed away.

The prosecutor, Adv Ratshilumela Makhera, submitted in aggravation of sentence that what the accused had done was ugly and unacceptable. “He took somebody’s life, which is a precious gift from God,” Adv Makhera said. He submitted that the accused must go to prison for a long time, so that he could rehabilitate.

Judge Nare Kgomo emphasised that the accused was not a first-time offender and that he had a propensity for committing crimes. Therefore, the court deemed it fit to send him to prison for a long time. The sentence in the assault case was ordered to run concurrently with the sentence in the murder case.

The NPA Limpopo regional spokesperson Mashudu Malabi-Dzhangi said that the National Prosecuting Authority welcomed the sentence.

Date:15 September 2017

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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