[bloodrayne]

South Africa

Court stunned as killer laughs at sentence

"Man, I can't believe you are laughing. What is so laughable about the sentence?"

Perhaps the abattoir worker thought it was funny, but the court interpreter felt disgusted and castigated 23-year-old Sebenzile Raymond Tshazi in isiZulu for laughing when the judge on Wednesday sentenced him to life for beheading a man and later trying to sell his head for muti.

His actions also puzzled members of the public sitting in the gallery.

Despite being reprimanded, Tshazi kept grinning long after the Johannesburg High Court had read the sentence for the murder of 52-year-old Oupa Reuben Ncetheswa in May last year.

Police used a bogus traditional healer to set a trap
Tshazi, who worked at a Krugersdorp abattoir, stabbed Ncetheswa eight times in the chest before decapitating him.

He put the homeless man's head - with its hat on - in a plastic bag and hid it in the veld.

On hearing there was someone selling a man's head, police used a bogus traditional healer to set a trap for Tshazi.

Passing sentence, Judge Naren Pandya described the killing as a "barbaric" act committed out of "sheer greed".

Tshazi was also sentenced to a year in jail for being in possession of a human body-part.