16 Apr 2023

Murder convict, Nthoiwa Maxala has on April 14, had the death sentence that was imposed on him by Francistown High Court overturned.

He was then sentenced to 30 years imprisonment by the Court of Appeal.

Maxala, 41, was convicted for killing a former Tutume McConnell College Physics teacher, Thuso Duncan Mulaladzi in 2015, whom he gunned down after a disagreement.

Delivering the judgment, Justice Isaac Lesetedi dismissed Maxala’s appeal against conviction while allowing his appeal against capital punishment.

He said the death penalty imposed on Maxala be set aside and be replaced with an order that extenuating circumstances had been found to exist.

“The appellant is sentenced under section 203 (2) of the Penal Code to a period of 30 years imprisonment calculated from the date of recall of his bail,” he said.

He said such period of imprisonment would be deducted from the time spent in custody awaiting trial.

On the length of the sentence, he said such was borderline case in which Maxala acted in extreme anger after failing to control his sense of grievance.

However, he said the unlawful act required stiff penalty to send a message that the pursuit of another with a lethal weapon in the circumstances that Maxala did was a serious offence.

Nonetheless, he said the court ought to weigh that against the mitigating circumstances.

Justice Lesetedi, however, noted that although the appellant was entitled to place facts, he considered mitigation before the trial court or even at the stage of enquiry into the extenuating circumstances, he omitted to do so and few factors were present before the court.

Justice Lesetedi stated that the case was not that of a cold-blooded murder, but murder committed in the heat of anger, resentment and legitimate grievance against the deceased who called his friends from Borolong and got the appellant beaten up for no discernible good reasons and without provocation.

That, he said, did not appear that there was ever any misunderstanding or exchange between the appellant and the deceased regarding where the appellant had parked his car prior to the deceased calling upon his friends who were in Francistown to come to aid him.

Maxala was appealing a conviction on a charge of murder and a sentence of capital punishment of the murder of Mulaladzi on September 13, 2015 in Francistown.

According to the court records, Maxala on the fateful evening drove his cousin and the cousin’s girlfriend to a woman’s home where he parked in the yard behind a vehicle belonging to the deceased, who was the cousin’s ex-lover.

Court heard that a while thereafter, a Hilux van carrying several of the deceased’s friends summoned by the deceased pulled behind Maxala’s vehicle and assaulted him alongside the woman friend who was at one time unconscious and taken to the local clinic for medical attention.

After the assault, Maxala reported the matter to the police and later went home to fetch a short gun and followed the group up, subsequently killing the deceased.

The case was before Justices Lesetedi, Singh Walia and Goemekgabo Tebogo-Maruping. ENDS