![Onthatile Sebati [middle] has appeared in court, accused of masterminding the brutal of her parents and her two siblings in 2016. Photo: Screengrab/Newzroom Afrika](https://image-prod.iol.co.za/16x9/1600/Onthatile-Sebati-middle-has-appeared-in-court-accused-of-masterminding-the-brutal-of-her-parents-and-her-two-siblings-in-2016-Photo-Screengrab-Newzroom-Afrika?source=https://iol-prod.appspot.com/image/46f7b945b876564f941ec11871c41501baec768d/2000&operation=CROP&offset=0x3&resize=2000x1125)
The Pretoria High Court has sentenced a woman to 25 years imprisonment after she was convicted of hiring her cousins to kill her parents, sister and brother when she was just 15 years old.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) explained that Onthathile Sebati was sentenced to 25 years of direct imprisonment each for four counts of murder, 10 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances, five years for theft, five years for possession of a firearm, and an additional five years for possession of ammunition.
"Sebati was sentenced in accordance with the Child Justice Act, Sections 69 and 77 of the Criminal Procedure Act. The judge ordered that her sentence be backdated to her arrest on December 16, 2021. Additionally, the Judge ruled that all sentences for the three individuals would run concurrently, and they were declared unfit to possess a firearm. An order for the search and seizure of their premises was also granted," said NPA spokesperson, Lumka Mahanjana.
Her cousins; Tumelo and Kagiso Mokone, were also sentenced to four life terms each for four counts of murder, 15 years each for robbery with aggravating circumstances, five years each for theft, five years each for possession of a firearm, and an additional five years each for possession of ammunition.
IOL previously reported that the North West woman, a teenager at the time of the crimes, paid her cousins R50,000 each for their roles in the murders. She obtained the monies from payouts received once her parents died.
The trio were charged with murder, theft, robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition.
In 2021, Sebati confessed that she gave her father, police officer Solomon Lucky Sebati's firearm to kill her mother, nurse Mmatshepo Sebati, as well as her 19-year-old pregnant sister Tshegofatso and six-year-old brother Quinton at their home in Mmakau, in the North West.
After shooting the family, the Mokone siblings fled the scene in Sebati's father's car, which was later found abandoned a few metres from the home after the car got stuck in mud.
In the lead up to the sentencing the trio initially pleaded guilty but DNA was able to link one of the brothers to the crime. The others confessed.
IOL News