Africa-Press – South-Africa. A 45-year-old Mpumalanga man was sentenced to 25 years for murdering a Bethal couple in March 2020.
Francois Pretorius was sentenced in the Mpumalanga High Court sitting in Delmas on Tuesday after reaching a plea and sentencing agreement with the State.
He pleaded guilty to killing Hannes Beukes and his wife, Ibel, who visited him at his house in Rustfontein, Mpumalanga.
According to the Highveld Tribune, an investigating officer testified the couple had visited Pretorius, a jeweller, to conduct business. But Pretorius and the couple “had a quarrel about Jesus, and he lost his temper and killed them”.
In his plea statement, Pretorius said that, after arguing with the couple, he assaulted them. He loaded the bodies in the boot of their vehicle, drove to an open veld, and abandoned the car near the Bethal dam. He took their cellphones, wallets and jewellery.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson, Monica Nyuswa, said the court found no factors to deviate from the prescribed minimum sentence.
“Pretorius was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on each count of murder, five years’ imprisonment for count 2 to run concurrently with the sentence imposed on count 1… the effective sentence being 25 years’ direct imprisonment,” she said.
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