Farmer killer suspect in court

Since Anton Verwey was stabbed to death during a robbery at the couple’s small farm in Ixopo on March 7 last year, his widow, Glenda Verwey has moved to Kenya to live with relatives.

The court heard that before the murder, Glenda fell ill with cancer and had limited eyesight.

State advocate Dheelan Naidoo said Glenda’s health, the couple’s age and location on a farm, added to their vulnerability.

Two of Verwey’s killers, Skhumbuzo Khanyile and Siphokuhle Malunga, were jailed for life for his murder by Judge Piet Bezuidenhout in the Pietermaritzburg high court on Friday.

Each of the men received additional sentences of 14 and 13 years respectively for related charges, including housebreaking and attempted robbery.

The judge said he regarded it as aggravating that the two men and their accomplice Thandanani Mweli — who is already serving a 25-year sentence for the murder — had broken into the farmhouse a few days before the murder and stole items worth R44 000.

The trio went back to the farm in the early hours of March 7, 2016, where they stabbed Verwey twice, once in the heart and once in the stomach.

The court relied on the evidence of Mweli to convict the two men as he had pleaded guilty to the crimes soon after his arrest and undertook to help the police in bringing the other assailants to book.

Judge Bezuidenhout said when he testified in the case, Mweli had not tried to minimise his own role and had shown genuine remorse.

He said he could not find that either Khanyile or Malunga were remorseful.