Staff Reporter.
A man who doused his girlfriend with petrol as she slept and set her alight has been handed a 20-year sentence for the murder.
Mpho Thobane was sentenced yesterday at the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court three years after murdering Viwe Dalingozi.
The magistrate said Thobane never showed any remorse because after he set Dalingozi alight, he fled to Limpopo instead of helping her.
On October 26 in 2018, Dalingozi was asleep at their Joburg CBD flat when Thobane entered, doused her with petrol then set her alight.
As she burnt, Thobane fled to Limpopo.
Dalingozi, who was from Engcobo in the Eastern Cape, died after two days of excruciating pain.
Johannesburg Police spokesperson Captain Xoli Mbele said Thobane had arrived home that evening to find Dalingozi sitting with her friends on another floor. Thobane, he said, was unemployed and Dalingozi was the breadwinner.
He said Thobane joined them and later said they must leave. However, Dalingozi told him he could go ahead and she would find him at the flat.
“When she later went to their flat, she did not find him and then got into bed to sleep. Thobane later came, poured petrol on her and set her on fire.
“He fled to Limpopo where we arrested him four days later.
Thobane intends to appeal his sentence.