White South African farmers jailed for killing black teenager accused of stealing $5 worth of sunflowers

Pieter Doorewaard and Phillip Schutte, found guilty of killing a teenager, Matlhomola Mosweu, who was thrown from a moving vehicle, look on during sentencing in Mafikeng, South Africa March 6, 2019. (Reuters)

Two white farmers in South Africa were handed a lengthy jail sentence Wednesday for murdering a black teenager who they suspected of stealing about $5 worth of sunflowers in a remote farming community.

Pieter Doorewaard, 28, and Phillip Schutte, 38, were found guilty last October for the April 2017 murder of 15-year-old Matlhomola Mosweu, who died after being thrown out of a moving vehicle driven by the pair, Reuters reported.

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The two men claimed they had caught the teenager taking a plant from a farm in the area. They claimed Mosweu had jumped off the truck as they drove him to police, but an investigation found that Schutte threw the teen to his death, Al Jazeera reported.

The death sparked outrage and protests in the farming community of Coligny, about 125 miles northwest of Johannesburg, in a country where deep racial divisions persist 25 years after the end of white minority apartheid rule.

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Doorewaard was sentenced to at least 18 years in prison – including 15 for murder, while Schutte will serve 23 years, 20 of which for murder, Reuters reported. Both got three years for kidnapping, two for intimidation, one year for theft and two years for pointing of a firearm.

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North West High Court Judge Ronald Hendricks told the two men that Mosweu’s death was not planned nor premeditated, they acted recklessly.

"Murder is undoubtedly the most serious offense that can be committed," he said. "You picked up the deceased and threw him from the van onto the ground. Your actions that day were indeed disgraceful."