Maryna van Wyk

Seven members of a Pakistani mafia will spend more than 300 years in jail after they were sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment.

During sentencing on Saturday, Judge MH Rampai imposed four life sentences on each of the three gang leaders, Shahid Saeed, Saleem Qurashi and Farham Ullah for the murders of four Pakistani citizens in 2008.

The bodies of the four men from Johannesburg, Malik Yasser, 45, Amanullah Nusrullam, 26, Shabodien Hussein, 30 and Saleem Majid, 30, were dug up in December, 2008 at the back of a house in Clocolan.

The four deceased were believed to be members of the Lajpal gang.

The convicted killers, from the Basra gang, and the Lajpal gang were described in 2009 by SAPS Organised Crime as two of the most murderous gangs in the country. They have been at war with each other for many years.

The area of the four graves was cordoned off as family members of the deceased and the media looked on in horror while the police searched for the bodies. The badly decomposed bodies of the four men were found in two graves. The gang leaders were sentenced to an additional 57 years each for 11 other charges which will run concurrently.

A fourth member of the gang, Shabir Gulam, received four life sentences and an additional 54-years inprisonment. The men were also found guilty of robbing the four deceased of their vehicles, cellphones and two firearms.

The other members of the Basra gang, Ejaz Ahmed, Ali Mazhir and Ali Tanveer with the four other members, were found guilty of gang-related activities between May 2007 and April 2008.

Ahmed was found guilty of the murder of Lesotho businessman, Zia Kahn. His body was found in March, 2007, in Estoire outside Bloemfontein. He will serve a 15-year jail sentence.

All the other gang members were found guilty for the kidnapping of Kahn and blackmailing his business partner, Rashid Anwary, for an amount of R2m.

Saeed, Qurashi and Ullah were found guilty for the conspiracy to kidnap Anwary in 2008. Mazhir and Tanveer were also found guilty for the murders of the four Johannesburg men. They were sent to jail for 31 and 26 years respectively.

Mazhir will be in jail for 10 years and Tanveer for seven.

The high-profile murders of the four Pakistanis in 2008 also involved the world renowned “locator” from Bloemfontein, Danie Krugel, who pointed out the location of the graves with his DNA-system after the family of one of the deceased sent him hair.

Det Leon Rossouw from Bloemfontein, managed to tie the various incidences and suspects of the crime together.