By Staff Reporter
A 30-year old South African man has been slapped with a 20-year jail term after he was found guilty of burning his girlfriend to death in 2018.
Mpho Thobane, who was 27 at the time the crime was committed, set alight his girlfriend, Viwe Dalingozi with petrol after they allegedly had an argument.
The court heard that the accused poured petrol on the 32 year-old woman, while she was asleep in their flat in the Johannesburg CBD, before setting her on fire.
It was the state’s case that the accused fled to Limpopo and was arrested by police days later.
The deceased, Dalingozi suffered severe burnt wounds and died two days after the gruesome attack.
In passing the sentence, magistrate Hombakazi Thwele said, ‘This is clearly a case of gender-based violence.”
” The community deserves to live in a better world than this.
“A world in which a woman is able to move out of a relationship without fear of losing her life.
” A world in which a woman’s life is valued by all and her fate is not in the hands of a man.”
