A 10-YEAR-OLD HIV-positive boy from Zezane in Beitbridge died after being slapped once by his brother for refusing to take anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. This was heard by Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha yesterday when Thuso Ndou (28) appeared before him charged with murdering his younger brother Bernard Tlou in 2013. Ndou who has been in custody since his arrest on July 31 last year pleaded not guilty to murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of culpable homicide. When Justice Kamocha asked him if he understood the murder charge he was facing, Ndou responded: “Yes, I do understand the charge, but I did not kill him intentionally. I only slapped him once with an open hand.” The agreed facts between the State represented by Angeline Munyeriwa and the accused’s lawyer Byron Sengweni were that on July 30 2013, Ndou arrived home and was told that his younger brother was refusing to take ARVs. He then slapped him once with an open hand and Tlou fell to the ground and became unconscious. Ndou poured water on him and later took him to the local clinic where he later died. Sengweni submitted that Ndou was pleading not guilty to murder, but admitting the culpable homicide charge. Munyeriwa accepted his plea of culpable homicide in terms of Section 271 (2) (b) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. Kamocha then convicted Ndou of culpable homicide and sentenced him to perform 526 hours of community service at Zezane Police Station. In mitigation, Sengweni submitted that Ndou is married and has one child and had been taking care of the deceased since the death of their parents. “This offence is as a result of what was meant to simply chastise the child due to his desire to see the deceased live a healthy life by taking ARVs consistently,” Sengweni said. “The accused feared that he had not taken ARVs and feared that would further complicate his condition, so he sought to administer a single slap in order to send a message to him that he should never refuse to take pills that were meant to prolong his life.” He said Ndou sought to save Tlou’s life and pleaded for a non-custodial sentence considering that he has been in custody since July 31 2013. Justice Kamocha questioned why Ndou resorted to violence on a child he knew was HIV-positive. “Why should he become violent? Why hitting him and the blow must have been very heavy. If he had not hit him hard, he would not have fallen down,” he said. “What was the need for using violence? He should have talked to him nicely that taking drugs was in his interest; he would have understood. The kid has lost his life; that is a young life that has been lost here.”
