Two Grootvlei farm attackers get 20 years each for murder of 68-year-old farmer
Nkosingiphile Malinga and Samukelo Tshabalala, teenagers when they attacked the couple in July 2023, entered a plea agreement with the state, while two co-accused still face trial in Delmas.
Two men were sentenced to an effective 20 years in prison each for a farm attack near Grootvlei in Mpumalanga that killed a 68-year-old farmer and left his 65-year-old wife with severe head injuries.
Nkosingiphile Malinga and Samukelo Tshabalala were sentenced in the Mpumalanga High Court sitting in Middelburg. Both were teenagers at the time of the attack on 30 July 2023. As Sunday World reported on 25 October, Mpumalanga police welcomed the convictions over the weekend.
Police responded to reports of violence at the farm that day and found the man’s body with fatal stab wounds. His wife was taken to hospital. The attackers took the couple’s vehicle, firearms, ammunition and several electrical appliances before fleeing.
A lookout was issued for the stolen vehicle, which was later found overturned near Villiers. Four suspects were arrested there: Siyabonga Ziqubu, Kgahliso Motaung, Samukelo Tshabalala and Nkosingiphile Malinga.
The case was transferred from the Balfour Magistrate’s Court to the Mpumalanga High Court in Middelburg. The accused faced charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, contraventions of the Older Persons Act and violations of the Firearms Control Act.
Earlier this month Malinga and Tshabalala entered into a plea and sentence agreement with the state under Section 105A of the Criminal Procedure Act. Each was sentenced to 25 years for murder, with five years suspended on condition that neither is convicted of a similar offence during the suspension period. They also received sentences on the attempted murder, robbery, Older Persons Act and firearms counts.
The court ordered the sentences on the remaining counts to run concurrently with the murder sentence, producing an effective 20 years for each man.
The cases against Ziqubu and Motaung have been separated. Their trial is scheduled for the Delmas High Court between 6 and 17 November.
Mpumalanga provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Apaphia Modise praised the investigating team, the prosecutors and the judiciary. “This sentencing should send a clear message that those who attack victims, including members of farming communities and vulnerable elderly persons, will face the full might of the law,” Modise said.
Police also commended the investigating officer from the Gert Sibande District Murder and Robbery Unit for the investigation that secured the convictions.
For farming communities in Mpumalanga and across the country, the case turns on a familiar sequence: an attack on an elderly couple in a remote farmhouse, a stolen vehicle traced to a nearby town, and a prosecution that took more than two years to reach sentencing. Two of the four arrested will now serve their terms. The other two remain accused, with their trial still ahead.
