Killer cop asks court for mercy
INDEPENDENT
MEDIA
The
burnt-out car in which Claudia Rapudis remains were found in dense bushes
outside Pretoria. Picture: ThobileMathonsi
Pretoria - I regret my stupid actions and ask the court for mercy. This
was the plea of former Tshwane metro police officer Lloyd Maleswena, in a
statement to the High Court in Pretoria, after he brutally murdered his lover
and fellow officer, Kefilwe Claudia Rapudi.
He strangled the 24-year-old woman at his home in Lotus Gardens on
November 2, 2011, before loading her body into the boot of her car and setting
the vehicle alight.
Her charred remains were discovered soon after, but by that time
Maleswena had disappeared.
While police were searching for her killer, he remained mum, and on the
eve of her burial two weeks after her death, he went to her family’s home to
pay his respects.
Rapudi’s distraught parents had to wait for nearly three weeks before
hearing who was behind their daughter’s death.
This came to light after Maleswena went to the ZCC Church headquarters
in Moria, where he confessed to the killing. The priest alerted police, who
arrested him.
Claudia Rapudi.
On Wednesday Judge MmonoaTeffo convicted Maleswena, 26, of murder. She
found that the woman was intentionally throttled to death before set alight
inside her car.
Maleswena had earlier confessed to throttling her with both hands after
a lovers’ tiff, but later claimed he only throttled her with one hand and
pushed her away from him. She fell across the bed and he said he was not sure
what caused her death.
A doctor who performed a post-mortem on Rapudi, stated that she died of
burn wounds. This was because all her organs were charred and it could not be
detected that she was in fact strangled.
Although Maleswena at first pleaded guilty to the murder, the court
noted a plea of not guilty in light of him stating that he is not sure what
caused her death.
In his confession he explained how, after accusing her of being
unfaithful, he grabbed her around the neck in his bedroom and throttled her
with both hands. She lost consciousness and he left her on the floor, before
going to work.
Maleswena said he returned after a few hours and found her on the floor.
“I became scared and I placed her in the boot of her car.”
He drove to a veld near Mamelodi, where he set the vehicle alight. A
group of churchgoers nearby heard an explosion and saw the burning car. Police
found Rapudi’s charred body in the boot.
“I could not live with what I had done. It haunted me. I went to Moria
to clear my conscience,” he said.
A ZCC secretary, the first to speak to Maleswena, said the accused told
him that the police and her family had been searching for her for some time,
but did not suspect him because he was also a police officer.”
Maleswena testified in court that what he did was “disgusting and
unlawful and that he was sorry”.
He also said he did not know “what to call himself in front of the
community”.
He asked Rapudi’s family for forgiveness. Questioned by the State, he
admitted that when he left her in the bedroom after throttling her, he realised
she could die.
Following the conviction, her cousin, ClevioRapudi, told the Pretoria
News that the family were happy that justice had prevailed. “But whatever
happens, nothing will bring her back.”
He said she was a young woman with big dreams, who had graduated as a
policewoman a few months before her death.
Taking the stand to testify in aggravation of sentence, he said only he
and her parents saw her charred remains. “It is a picture that keeps on
flashing in my mind.”
He said Maleswena came to their home on the eve of the funeral and while
Rapudi’s father suspected he had something to do with his daughter’s death, he
did not doubt the accused. “I said to him ‘I am sure you also want to know who
did this’. He responded that he also wanted answers.”
The defence called for a sentence not higher than 12 years.
The State called for a jail term exceeding 15 years.
Maleswena will be sentenced on Thursday.
Pretoria News
