A former intelligence chief in the South African police was sent to prison Tuesday, September 29, after being convicted of the 1998 kidnapping of a rival in love.
With one of his colleagues at the time, Richard Mdluli had used his post in the police to track down, kidnap and assault a man who had made the mistake of marrying one of his former girlfriends, Tshidi Buthelezi.
Read also: South Africa: no evidence of an Iranian plot to kill the American ambassador
Epilogue of this bad thriller, Richard Mdluli, 62 years old today, was sentenced Tuesday to five years of detention.
The kidnapped man, Oupa Ramogibe, was shot dead a few months later, a murder for which no suspect has been arrested.
“
We are dealing with two senior police officers who have used resources that police officers normally have access to, but in such an abusive way that the result has been devastating,
” said Johannesburg court judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng.
"
The only appropriate sentence, in my opinion, is detention,
" he added.
The accused had asked that he be spared a prison sentence, saying he feared contracting the coronavirus in prison but the judge rejected this request: "
In South Africa, everyone is likely to catch the virus
", he declared, adding that the detainees were not thrown into prison "
like animals
".
Richard Mdluli, considered a protégé of former President Jacob Zuma, had headed the department for the fight against organized crime between 2009 and 2012. He said Tuesday that he would appeal.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/76GDL6UNHRFLRO2RAJWYIEXOXU.jpg)
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/KMEYMJKESBAZBE4MRBAM4TGHIQ.jpg)
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/EXJQILQR5QI7OMVRTERD7AEZAU.jpg)
