Former Free State Police, Roads and Transport MEC Butana Komphela has been sentenced to three years imprisonment which has been suspended for five years.
This after the Brandfort Magistrate’s Court found him guilty of culpable homicide for being responsible for a crash in which 50-year-old Samuel Manyova was killed.
Komphela was driving from the direction of Theunissen to Bloemfontein when his vehicle veered onto oncoming traffic in 2019.
The vehicle crossed the two barrier lines and collided with another vehicle driving in the opposite direction with five occupants. The other vehicle overturned several times and Manyova who was one of the passengers died at the scene. Other occupants suffered minor injuries.
“The NPA has welcomed a three-year wholly suspended sentence handed to former MEC for Police, Roads and Transport in the Free State Mr Butana Komphela, after he was convicted of culpable homicide. He was accused of causing an accident that led to the loss of life of Samuel who was a passenger in a vehicle that Mr Komphela collided with on the R30 in Brandfort on 6 January 2019. The NPA accepts the sentence considering the age to Komphela but we maintain that he had to be punished for causing the accident,” says Phaladi Shuping, NPA Provincial Spokesperson.
