A Sea Point man has been jailed for 18 years for stabbing a woman 17 times after she told him she was HIV-positive.
|||Cape Town -
A Sea Point man has been sentenced to 18 years in jail for the murder of a 26-year-old woman whose body he hid under a bed.
Siyabonga Gelese, 23, was also sentenced to 10 years in the Cape Town Regional Court for raping a pregnant woman.
The sentences will run concurrently.
Magistrate Lulamile Mdoda said he had shown Gelese “mercy” by taking into account the fact that he has been in custody for almost two years.
The case stemmed from an incident last January when Gelese stabbed Desiree Davids 17 times before shoving her body under his bed. He also tied a plastic bag around her head.
The pair had met the night before and had sex in his flat. Then she told him she was HIV-positive.
Gelese told the court he was “incensed” as he had wanted to use a condom but she refused. In anger, he stabbed her and hid the body under his bed.
Hours later, Gelese went clubbing and returned with friends. One couple had sex on the bed under which Davids’s body lay.
Gelese then raped a pregnant woman while her boyfriend was asleep beside her.
He had pleaded guilty to murder, but denied the rape charge.
At the time of his arrest, Gelese was 22 and had been working as a barman at an Italian restaurant and had been renting the Sea Point flat.
On Wednesday, defence lawyer Aneeqah Booley argued that Gelese was fairly young, a first-time offender and was “provoked” when Davids told him she was HIV positive.
She said Gelese had insisted that they use a condom but Davids refused and later told him that she was HIV-positive.
Gelese said he had lost both his parents to HIV when he was a child.
Gelese said his childhood emotions returned under such provocation, which was why he stabbed Davids several times.
”He is an intelligent man, he made a mistake, that was his instructions to me, he made a mistake,” said Booley.
Mdoda said there was “absolutely no valid reason for killing the deceased”. Killing a person because they were HIV positive was no justification.
“And the person doing so has to be punished accordingly,” he said.
He said that Gelese had no reason to believe that Davids was infected with HIV.
He said that Gelese did not go for a test and there was no proof that Davids was telling him the truth that she was HIV-positive.
Of the rape, Mdoda said:
“When the victim testified in court she broke down which was indicative of the negative affect that the rape had on her life.”
natasha.prince@inl.co.za
Cape Argus