JOHANNESBURG – Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye has been released on parole, Correctional Services confirmed on Thursday.
“The Department of Correctional Services can confirm the parole placement of Katlego Molemo Maarohanye and Themba Shabalala as approved by the Correctional Supervision and Parole Boards (CSPBs) of Leeuwkop and Baviaanspoort with effect from 5 January 2017,” spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said in a statement.
Maarohanye and Shabalala were found guilty of culpable homicide for killing four school children during a drag racing accident.
“To this date, each parolee has served four years, one month and one day behind bars,” Nxumalo said.
The pair was initially handed 20 years for murder but their sentences were reduced to 10 years, two of which were suspended.
Many of jub jub’s fans and friends are excited but not the Justice Project South Africa chairman Howard Dembovsky, after the release of Molemo ‘Jub Jub’ Maarohanye and Themba Tshabalala on parole after serving four years and one month of their respective eight-year sentences for killing four schoolchildren and injuring another two in 2010.
Especially as he mentioned that these two high-profile offenders were originally convicted of murder, Maarohanye and Shabalala were driving under the influence of drugs and racing on a public road, those convictions were reduced to culpable homicide on appeal, further diluting the deterrent value of even the eight-year terms to which to which they were finally sentenced.
The two crashed their Mini Coopers into a group of schoolboys in Protea North, Soweto, on March 8, 2010. Four boys — Prince Mohube, Mlungisi Cwayi, Andile Mthombeni, and Phomello Masemola — were killed. Frank Mlambo and Fumani Mushwana were left permanently brain damaged.
It sends out ‘unfortunate’ message from the point of view of road safety, he says, given that very few drivers who kill other road users while drunk or high are ever convicted in a court of law.
That’s largely due to unjustifiable delays in blood-alcohol test results from the department of health. And rightly so – the courts can’t convict a driver of being ‘over the limit’ in the absence of timeous and reliable evidence of just what his blood-alcohol content was at the time.
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