[The cheeky bugger blamed his actions on Apartheid!! Jan]

Describing murderer, rapist and kidnapper William Kekana as “Satan incarnate”, Judge Monica Leeuw in the Temba Circuit High Court on Tuesday sentenced him to six life sentences plus 60 years.

“He is the real reincarnation of the devil himself. I would say he is the devil personified,” Leeuw said, staring at Kekana in the dock.

Leeuw, who handed down the sentence that will ultimately only make Kekana eligible for parole after 54 years, said that she, in her 27 years in the legal profession, has never encountered one so evil.

Calling him an “incorrigible rogue” who was not prepared to live according to the norms of society and labelling him a “menace to society”, Leeuw said she had been surprised to hear he actually believed in God when he asked for God’s forgiveness.

On Monday, Leeuw convicted Kekana on all 14 charges relating to the hijacking, abduction, murder and rape of Janine Drennan; the murder of her one-year-old daughter, Kayla; the murder of grandmother Hester Rawstone; and the rape and attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl.

On Tuesday in mitigation of sentence, Kekana tried to convince the court that he was sorry for what he had done and said Leeuw had been correct in finding him guilty.

Through his defence, Advocate Janus Roothman, Kekana initially blamed his behaviour on the divorce of his parents when he was 17 but then admitted that he found crime easy.

He said he had not expected to be arrested as “all the charges previously had been withdrawn due to lack of evidence”.

“I found it very easy and simple to commit the crimes,” he said.

Kekana told the court he had killed the family because they were white and because of apartheid.

“I am a black man and you are a white man and I forgave you. I ask you to forgive me,” Kekana told state Advocate Dewald Reynierse during cross-examination of his evidence in mitigation of sentence.

Kekana’s remark elicited a gasp from the presiding judge and the public gallery.

“You raped a white lady and killed her and her family because of apartheid … What do you know about apartheid?” interjected Leeuw, who pointed out that Kekana had been born in 1984.

Reynierse then asked him why he had raped a 17-year-old girl who was not white and Kekana answered: “Satan intervened.”

In explaining Kekana’s behaviour to the court, Reynierse said these were the actions of an animal but Leeuw again interjected, correcting him, saying: “No, animals have rules.”

Kekana asked the court through Roothman not to give him a life sentence as he would “prefer death” to receiving another life sentence. He had been previously convicted on other charges.

“Being in prison is like death,” he told the court.

In passing sentence, Leeuw described Kekana’s attempt to blame apartheid as “a sublime piece of nonsense” and said it told how the accused “had a sense of entitlement — what’s yours is mine”.

“South Africa does not need a man like you, not now, and not in a very long time.”

Calling him a coward, she said he realised that the women were defenceless and that he gained strength and courage from being able to control them with illegal firearms.

Leeuw said: “As far as women are concerned they have been humiliated by men like you who use sex as a form of punishment…”

Family members of the dead hugged and cried as the sentence was passed. Kekana ran out of the court into the cells, barging through the crowd.

Kayla’s father and Janine’s fiance at the time of the murder, Clifford Rawstone, said he would only forgive Kekana the day he saw him hang.

But he and the rest of the family said they were happy with the sentence as it brought closure.

Rawstone’s father, Henry, said it had helped seeing the accused but he wanted the reinstatement of the death penalty. Clifford’s sister, Lorraine, said she felt sorry for Kekana’s father, Monyemakgaloa, because he had been through as much as the family had.

Responding to his success, Reynierse said: “The judge has done her job well.” — Sapa

Source: Daily Mail & Guardian
URL: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119404/p>