Application dismissed.

Convicted murderer, Donovan Moodley has lost his application at the South Gauteng High Court to have his conviction for murder overturned. Now the man that kidnapped and murdered 21-year old Leigh Matthews, and then tried to extort money from her father, will return to jail to serve the rest of his life sentence.

In his application, heard last week, Moodley decided to represent himself, and amended his original statement to police, claiming that police investigating the case lost and/or tampered with evidence. He said that he had been offered R1 million by three Nigerian drug dealers to kidnap another man, and that they had orchestrated the kidnap and murder plot. He also said that the investigating officer had forced him to sign a confession.

Said Moodley in his application,

I was a young, defenceless man, who was crushed by the weight of the State, history is replete with innocent men being burnt at the stake… I saw an entire Oprah show about similar cases.

Judge Joop Labuschagne was not convinced by Moodley’s story, saying in his ruling,

The applicant’s ‘true story’ is riddled with improbabilities. I cannot find that there is a possibility that another court will come to a different conclusion.

Moodley is serving a life sentence for the murder, 15 years for her kidnapping, and 10 years for extortion. Plenty of time to catch up on more Oprah.

[Source: TIMES Live, News24]