Two young men from Tshakuma were sentenced to life imprisonment after gangraping a 52-year-old woman.

Ntambudzeni Nagana (28) and Tshifhiwa Madzivhandila (30) appeared in the Louis Trichardt Regional Court last Wednesday on single counts of rape and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

The rape took place on 21 February last year. The woman was collecting wood together with her husband near Levubu when Nagana and Madzivhandila approached them. First the men asked the woman’s husband for cigarettes and R10.

When he told them that he had nothing on him, they took his panga by force. Nagana and Madzivhandila threatened to kill the husband if he tried anything and ordered him to leave. They then used the panga to hit the woman and threaten her before raping her, taking turns while one would stand on the lookout.

After they finished raping the woman, she told police later, the two men debated over whether or not to kill her. The men left her for dead, however, and fled the scene with her cellphone.

The woman’s husband found her in the bushes when he later returned with help. She was taken to hospital, where DNA-samples of the two men were recovered from her. Nagana and Madzivhandila were arrested after police traced the cellphone they had stolen from the woman.

During their trial, the men were unable to explain how their DNA got inside the woman. They pleaded not guilty on both charges.

Both were sentenced to life in prison on the count of rape and five years on the count of robbery. The court ordered, however, that the sentences be served out concurrently, meaning that they received an effective 20 years' imprisonment.