Convicted killer appeals previous sentence
Having been found guilty of his ex-girlfriend’s murder earlier this month, notorious former policeman, Atholang Mujangi was back in court again on Tuesday.
The convicted killer, known as Two Meter because of his height, faces a possible date with the hangman’s dreaded noose.
The 40-year-old is due to appear before Francistown High Court on 30 June for mitigation and extenuation, where he will have to convince the court he does not deserve to die.
This week, however, Mujangi found himself in the limelight for a different matter.
The disgraced former cop was appealing a 2015 conviction in which Francistown Magistrates Court found him guilty of malicious property damage.
Mujangi was ruled to have torched another man’s car at Mmei Junior Secondary School, causing P4, 000 worth of damage to Letsweletse Matome’s Toyota Corolla.
He received a three-year suspended sentence and was also ordered to compensate Matome.
Despite escaping jail time, Mujangi decided to challenge the ruling.
Six years later and the appeal continues to drag on as the court is unable to locate the original case report. Mujangi is now demanding he be acquitted.
However, presiding Judge, Barnabas Nyamadzabo quashed his request, ruling, “We postpone the matter to the 19th of August so that the records can be looked for.”
Looking extremely stressed, a far cry from his laidback manner in previous court appearances, the convicted murderer was then escorted back to prison by heavily armed SSG officers.
Outside court, it was speculated Mujangi’s desperation to be acquitted is so that he can be sentenced as a first-time offender in his murder case.
He reportedly believes this could potentially save him from the death penalty.
On 14 May, Mujangi was found guilty of the 2014 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Bokani Sox, a nurse at Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital.
During his conviction, his defence team was told they will have to satisfy the court as to why their client should not be hanged – a meeting that will play out next month.
In his trial, it was heard how Mujangi confided in a Pastor and admitted killing Sox. Unbeknown to Mujangi, the Pastor recorded the confession, which was used in court as evidence.
In the recording, Mujangi revealed he murdered Sox along the Francistown-Matsiloje road because she refused to have a child with him only to fall pregnant with another man.
“I had a knife under the driver’s seat which I used to stab her on the cheek as we were walking. She then tried to run and I caught her and throttled her and took a large rock to smash her head. I then took plastics and papers to burn her body,” were the harrowing claims on the recording.
