[imagesource: Anthony Molyneaux]

Despite being found guilty of murdering his wife, Susan, Jason Rohde was granted R200 000 bail in December 2019 while waiting to appeal his sentence.

His bail came with certain conditions, one of which was that he reside at his home in Plettenberg Bay.

Over the past few months, Rohde’s legal team has taken his fight all the way to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).

It was clear from the outset that he was up against it, with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) arguing that Rohde’s account of Susan’s death is “nothing more than a desperate attempt to evade responsibility for assaulting, strangling, and asphyxiating her”.

In July 2016, Susan was found dead in the bathroom of a hotel room at Spier Wine Estate.

Jason insisted that she had committed suicide, using the cord of her hair curling iron, after finding out that his affair with real estate agent Jolene Alterskye was not over.

Earlier today, reports News24, the SCA rejected Rohde’s claims that his wife hanged herself, finding that the State proved “beyond reasonable doubt” that he strangled her:

In a unanimous ruling delivered on Tuesday morning, the court found that Western Cape High Court Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe incorrectly found that Rohde had smothered his wife and punched her.

“[Rohde] must be sentenced on count 1 on the basis that he unlawfully and intentionally killed the deceased by manual strangulation but did not assault her in any other way,” the court said.

Image: Facebook

It ordered that Rohde’s sentence for his wife’s murder should be reduced from 20 years to 15 years, which is the prescribed minimum sentence for murder.

Rohde, who is out on bail, will now need to hand himself over to authorities to begin serving his sentence.

Rohde was initially sentenced to an effective 20 years’ imprisonment, so the ruling was a minor win in that his sentence has been reduced to 15 years, and it was also a rebuke of Judge Hlophe’s handling of the case.

However, his hopes for freedom have been dashed, and he must now begin serving his sentence.

At this point, it’s unclear whether Rohde will head to the Constitutional Court to challenge the SCA’s decision.

It’s been reported on social media (unverified) that he will be eligible for parole after serving seven-and-a-half years.

I’ll repeat this one more time – he was found guilty of “unlawfully and intentionally killing the deceased by manual strangulation”.

Here’s a summary of the SCA’s findings:

Media Summary:Rohde v The State (815/2019) [2021] ZASCA 134 (5 October 2021). The SCA today dismissed an appeal against the convictions and upheld an appeal against the sentences of the appellant, Mr Jason Thomas Rohde. pic.twitter.com/ybnoT7YAA4

— Supreme Court of Appeal ZA (@SCA_ZA) October 5, 2021

[source:news24]