-
Joslin’s mother, Kelly Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn face charges of kidnapping and trafficking.
Convicted human traffickers, Kelly Smith, Jacquen Appollis and Steveno Van Rhyn will be sentenced today in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldanha Bay.
The trio was found guilty on charges of kidnapping and child trafficking in connection with the disappearance of then six-year-old Joshlin Smith, who went missing from her Middlepos home in February last year.
State prosecutor, Advocate Zelda Swanepoel, says the court should consider that Joshlin is still missing and that there was a plan to sell her.
Swanepoel says life imprisonment is an appropriate sentence.
“We don’t have her, we don’t know where she is. We don’t know whether she is alive or not. We will hope that she is still alive. But has she been exploited? We don’t know. Those are all the questions in the air. And all of that is aggravating. That we induced the evidence today to give a voice to Joshlin,” says Swanepoel.
Yesterday, the lawyer representing Appollis insisted that drugs had influenced his client’s actions.
VIDEO | Sentencing expected tomorrow in the Joshlin Smith kidnapping case:
