Killer rapist Andrew Jordaan loses appeal against life sentence
|Published
Flashback to October 2019 when rapist and killer Andrew Jordaan was sentenced to life behind bars. File Photo: Nicola Daniels
Cape Town - Convicted rapist and killer, Andrew Jordaan, lost his high court appeal against the life sentence handed down for the murder of Felicity Cilliers in 2007.
Jordaan appealed the 2019 sentence by Judge Lister Nuku, on among other grounds, that the sentencing court made a mistake by over-emphasising the need to protect public safety at his expense and not recognising that he was drunk and aged only 22 at the time of the rape and homicide.
Jordaan argued that all these circumstances, as well as the poor socio-economic conditions he had experienced in his life including a dysfunctional relationship with his mother which affected his dealings with women placed an obligation upon the sentencing court to pronounce a lighter sentence.
Opposing the appeal, the state argued that while Jordaan killed Cilliers in May 2007, he was convicted of another woman’s murder in June 2007.
The state also said Cilliers’s children suffered unnecessarily as a result of their mother’s murder, and that the ripple effect of Jordaan’s crimes had been significant, as the secondary victims of his crimes have suffered psychological and emotional trauma.
During sentencing in October 2019 Judge Nuku said Jordaan had shown a lack of remorse and had not apologised to Cilliers’s family.
At his trial Jordaan denied having intercourse with Cilliers until he was confronted with DNA evidence, after which he changed his story and claimed the encounter was one of consensual sex.
Dismissing the appeal Judge Derek Wille said Jordaan’s arguments were misplaced as he could never justify his actions.
“I find it unacceptable that the appellant took the deceased away to a secluded area and then raped and killed her.
"This behaviour, in my view, does not justify the imposition of a lesser sentence and is an aggravating feature of this rape homicide.
“In my view, the sentences imposed are not in any manner disproportionate to the crimes that were committed by the offender.
“I propose that the appeal against the sentence of life imprisonment imposed upon the appellant is dismissed and that the appellant’s convictions and sentences are hereby confirmed.”
Judge Wille’s ruling was supported by Judges Elizabeth Baartman and Hayley Maud Slingers.