Cricket bat death: robber jailed for 18 years
Man, 25, sentenced after savage attack on student in Summerstrand
A Walmer Township man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for aggravated robbery after the horror 2015 incident in which a university student was savagely beaten with a cricket bat.
Zolile Mfeketho, 25, was sentenced by magistrate Dewald Allers in the Port Elizabeth Regional Court on Tuesday after the death of Nelson Mandela University computer science student Asadullah Ajimudin, 20, in August 2015.
A year after the incident, with no leads emerging, the case had gone cold, but Detective-Constable Ridwaan Baatjies took it over and, in September 2016, Mfeketho was arrested as he left the St Albans prison after serving three months for burglary.
In August 2017, he was released after a court bungle, when his case was mistakenly struck from the roll. He was rearrested in March 2018.
Asadullah’s father, Sayed Ajimudin, said from the family home in Kimberley on Wednesday he was happy Mfeketho had finally been sentenced.
“I am happy that others may be protected from the accused’s evil actions,” he said.
“But it brings no closure. My son was murdered.”
He said he appreciated the efforts put in by Baatjies and prosecutor Benedict Wilson and understood the court could not pursue the charge of murder originally laid against Mfeketho because of a lack of evidence.
“But it is very frustrating.”
Ajimudin, a businessman and religious leader, said Asadullah had been the eldest of his six children.“He had entertained high hopes of pursuing a career in computer science after he graduated. It is a great loss.”Asadullah was found barely alive by Atlas Security in a flatlet in Ben Viljoen Street in Summerstrand after they responded to an alarm going off in the main house, in the early hours of August 8 2015.The student was wrapped in a duvet and had been brutally beaten with a cricket bat, apparently after he woke up to find burglars in his flatlet.He was rushed to St George’s Hospital and admitted to intensive care but, two days later after doctors made it clear there was no hope, the family made the heartbreaking decision to turn off his life support system.At the time of his arrest in 2016, Mfeketho was believed to be part of a gang allegedly headed by Melikhaya “Blade” Duba.Duba was considered to be one of Nelson Mandela Bay’s most-wanted suspects until his arrest, also in 2016, on an unrelated housebreaking charge.He is still in prison.Wilson said on Wednesday Mfeketho had been charged with murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and housebreaking with the intent to rob, and that he had acted in common purpose with an accomplice.But only the aggravated robbery charge could be proved.In a confession to police after his arrest in 2016, Mfeketho had claimed that Duba had been responsible for beating Asadullah with the cricket bat.However, he denied this confession in court and denied any knowledge of the robbery as a whole.The prosecution could, therefore, only pursue the available evidence, Wilson said.What became clear was that Mfeketho, seemingly instructed and guided by Duba, had found a way to get over the electric fencing around the Ben Viljoen property.He had then slipped through a sliding door, which had possibly been left ajar, and stolen the student’s laptop and cellphone.“I tried to argue that even if Mfeketho did not murder [Asadullah], that a man’s home is his castle and the intruders must have realised that there was a possibility that the victim might wake up while they were robbing him,” Wilson said.“There was therefore common cause in his murder.“This did not succeed but we argued further that a life had nevertheless been lost and that the magistrate had the discretion to increase the sentence in this regard.“This was accepted.“In the end, I am happy with the sentence that was handed down.”
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