Former KZN councilor gets life for fiancé and 3 children’s murder

A former councilor in the Okahlamba Municipality at Bergville in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) has been sentenced to life imprisonment after the Ladysmith Regional Court found him guilty of murdering his fiancé and their three children.

Forty-eight-old Michael Buthelezi was a DA councilor when there was a fire at his home in the Bethany area near Bergville in October 2023.

The blaze claimed the lives of his fiancé Khombosile Khoza and their three children.

The court heard that Buthelezi threatened to burn Khoza to death two weeks earlier.

KwaZulu-Natal NPA spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara, “Buthelezi was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment for each of the four counts of murder, five years imprisonment for the arson, and five years imprisonment for each of the two counts of defeating. He will serve an effective term of life imprisonment and he was declared unfit to possess a firearm.”