A South African court on Thursday sentenced a woman to a life term for kidnapping and selling her six-year-old daughter, in a case that horrified the country.
Racquel Kelly Smith and two co-accused got life terms for human trafficking and a concurrent 10 years for kidnapping, Judge Nathan Erasmus ruled.
Kelly Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno Van Rhyn were convicted of kidnapping and trafficking the girl, Joshlin Smith, after she disappeared from a small town in the Western Cape. Joshlin Smith has still not been found despite an extensive police search.
Announcing their sentences on Thursday, high court judge Nathan Erasmus said the fact Kelly Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn were drug users was no excuse.
"There is nothing that I can find that is redeeming and deserving of a lesser sentence than the harshest I can impose," Erasmus said.
‘Desired for eyes and skin’
Earlier this month, the South African court found the woman guilty Friday of trafficking her six-year-old daughter who has been missing for more than a year, in a case that has outraged the nation.
The two-month trial that shocked the country heard statements from various witnesses that Racquel "Kelly" Smith had revealed to them that she had sold her daughter Joshlin in February 2024, including claims she was paid 20,000 rand ($1,085) and that the girl was desired for her "eyes and skin".
Judge Nathan Erasmus said the evidence of 35 state witnesses led him to find that Smith, 35, and her two co-accused - a boyfriend and a mutual friend - were guilty on the charges of human trafficking and kidnapping.
"I have already found that on the evidence before me, Joshlin was exchanged," he had said.
"The evidence is from all scores there were payments, or at least the promise of payments," he said, accusing Smith of regarding her daughter, who was aged six when she disappeared, as a "commodity".
The trial was held in a community hall in the small fishing town of Saldanha Bay, about 135 kilometres (80 miles) north of Cape Town, where the case sparked outrage.
