Judge was biased, says Leigh’s killer

KHETHIWE CHELEMU

DONOVAN Moodley, the murderer of Johannesburg student Leigh Matthews, says he should not spend the rest of his life in prison because he “did not plan to kill” the 20-year-old.

He also claims the judge who sentenced him was biased because of the media attention generated by the case and society’s outrage at the killing.

Moodley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment for Matthews’ murder in July 2004.

The case made national headlines when she was kidnapped from a parking lot at the college at which she was studying. Her body was found 12 days later in a veld in Walkerville, south of Johannesburg, with a single bullet wound to the head. Her body had been refrigerated before it was dumped.

Moodley, who extorted R50000 from Matthews’ family, said during his trial that he killed her because she would have been able to identify him.

In papers filed before the Supreme Court of Appeal yesterday, Moodley says he feels “like a monkey in a cage” after serving four years in prison. He says he delayed his attempt to appeal the sentence in April because he “could not bear the continued scrutiny” of the media.

In 2005 Moodley said that he would plead not guilty should he be granted a retrial.

But in his appeal papers, Moodley admits guilt, claiming he should be given a lesser sentence because he had not planned or intended to kill Matthews.

Premeditated murder carries a harsher sentence than murder.

In his court papers Moodley describes the life sentence handed down by Judge Joop Labuschagne as “shockingly inappropriate” because the judge was influenced by the “extent of media coverage” of the case and because it was impossible for the judge to remain “immune to popular public opinion”.

Moodley claims that the judge did not properly consider his plea explanation — in which he said “the decision to kill [Matthews] was only made at the end of the sordid affair”.

“I took the decision there and then [on the day of the murder] to kill her [Matthews].

“It was only after I got to Walkerville that I realised that I had no other option but to kill [her],” he said.

He claims he was not consulted about his plea explanation by his lawyers prior to it being read in court.

“It was never my instructions to my legal representatives that I planned to kill the deceased,” Moodley adds.

He also claims that Labuschagne said in sentencing that “even if the minimum sentence was not applicable, he would have still imposed life imprisonment”.

Moodley says: “The judgment should be seen in the totality of the surrounding circumstances of this case. This case was a media frenzy from start to finish. The honourable judge translated the media frenzy into the interests of society.”

Moodley says the judge also failed to emphasise that he was a “first offender with no history of violence”.

Charles Thompson, representing Moodley in his application, said he was now waiting for a date on which the application will be heard.

Matthews’ father, Johannesburg businessman Rod Matthews, said he had not yet heard about Moodley’s appeal but called it “absolutely inappropriate”.

Matthews said: “It is a matter of record but I find it absolutely amazing that Moodley can now say all this. Most prisoners, after spending a long time in prison, believe that what they did is right.”