JOHANNESBURG: The king of Nelson Mandela’s Thembu ethnic group was sentenced on Thursday to 12 years in jail for torching homes, beating people and kidnapping a family in a supposed attempt to discipline them.

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal was ruling on an appeal by king Buleyekhaya Dalindyebo against his 2009 conviction and sentencing to a 15-year jail term.

The court in Bloemfontein upheld charges of arson, kidnapping, assault and “defeating the ends of justice”, but it dismissed one charge of culpable homicide. Dalindyebo’s legal team argued, in vain, that the burning of three families’ homes did not amount to arson because the properties could technically be regarded as belonging to the king, the eNCA news channel reported.

The king was also accused of kidnapping the family of a man who had failed to attend the royal court, eNCA added. The appeal court ruled Dalindyebo’s “behaviour was all the more deplorable because the victims of his reign of terror were the vulnerable rural poor, who were dependent upon him,” according to the News24 website.

Published in Dawn October 2nd, 2015

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