The State on Monday asked for the longest “thinkable sentence” for five men who killed and robbed the Potgieter family on their Free State farm.
Prosecutor Jannie Botha urged the Bloemfontein High Court to keep the men from society as long as “legally possible”.
Arguing for aggravated circumstances in the case, Botha said the court should think about the 151 stab and laceration wounds Lindley farmer Attie Potgieter received during the attack, in December 2010.
“What does that say about the people involved?”
Last month the court found two of the farm workers and three of their friends from Lindley guilty of murdering Potgieter, his wife Wilma and daughter Wilmien during a robbery on his farm Tweefontein.
A sixth man, Klaas Mofokeng, 34, was the only accused not linked to the murders of the family, but was found guilty of robbery with aggravating circumstances for sharing the loot afterwards.
On Monday, Paulus Khumalo, 23, and Mofokeng also testified about what they believed could reduce their sentences.
Khumalo, Klaas Mofokeng and Stemmer Mofokeng worked for Potgieter. The two Mofokengs are not related.
Botha said Potgieter’s injuries, which indicated he had been tortured, and the way his wife and child were shot, removed any mitigating circumstances.
Khumalo and the three men from Lindley - Tshekolo Letlala, 19, Telleko Seekoei, 20, and Diphapang Motaung, 18, - were found guilty of murdering Potgieter's wife Wilma.
The three Lindley men were also found guilty of murdering two-year-old Wilmien.
Judge George Wright said all five were guilty of robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Referring to defence's argument that the court should consider the killers' relatively young ages, Botha submitted more young people were becoming involved in serious crimes.
When sentencing these youth for adult crimes, they always argued “please treat me as a youth”, he said.
The State has asked for life imprisonment for farm worker Stemmer Mofokeng and two life sentences for Khumalo.
Three life imprisonment sentences each, one for each of the three murders, were proposed for Letlala and Seekoei. The State asked for the “heaviest” possible sentence for a Motaung. He was a minor at the time of the murder.
Mofokeng's lawyer asked the court to consider giving him a suspended sentence. The court heard he worked as a cattle herder, had no schooling and could not write.
Sentencing was postponed to Thursday. -
Sapa