"However much you may have been drinking — you were able to ejaculate — I don't consider that as mitigating for the rape," she told Thami Mtshali (24) and Mfathatha Mahlaba (30).

Mahlaba, who admitted previous convictions, was sentenced to 15 years for the murder of the rape victim while Mtshali was sentenced to five years for an aggravated assault on her.

On a November 2007 night as the victim left a liquor store in New Hanover, the men followed her, caught her, stripped her, assaulted, choked, raped, robbed and left her severely injured in the veld.

The men then stole clothes from a clothesline and dressed her in the stolen clothes.

She was found barely alive the following morning but died at the scene from manual strangulation and heavy bruising.

Niles-Duner said that the events of that evening were too horrible to consider.

The woman was beaten and strangled. The loss of a cellphone had caused a young woman in the prime of her life to lose her life leaving three young children.

"She was deprived of her dignity by being stripped and lost her ability and will to resist," the judge said.

"She suffered the indignity of a gang rape and left in the veld at night suffering from terrible injuries without anyone to assist her. Your behaviour was disgusting."

Niles-Duner ordered that the sentences run concurrently and that the two serve at least 25 years before being eligible for parole.

Sapa

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