He tried to commit suicide after the event and suffered from depression, which showed his actions had been gnawing on his conscience, Preller said. Losing one's life savings at his age also had severe consequences.īenbelkacem had also shown genuine remorse by pleading guilty and fully disclosing everything to the court. He said although he may have been wrong, Benbelkacem had genuinely believed he was entitled to the money. Preller found that the murder had not been premeditated, but committed on the spur of the moment. Osmani's former wife Wendy testified that her ex-husband had believed Benbelkacem should sort out his own problems and was not entitled to a refund, but the accused had threatened to shoot her and her son if her former husband did not pay him back. The shooter was apprehended and detained by security guards at the centre and subsequently arrested by the police.Īccording to Benbelkacem, he had fetched his firearm from a nearby building site after seeing Osmani sitting in the restaurant with the intention of threatening him to get his money back, but became enraged and decided to shoot him. Osmani, a successful businessman, had been sitting at a table in the Parrots restaurant where he had a business lunch with a woman, when Benbelkacem strolled into the restaurant, pulled a firearm out of a white plastic bag and shot him in the back and back of his head at point-blank range before casually leaving the restaurant. ![]() He attempted to recoup his investment from Osmani but extensive family negotiations and even attempted litigation failed. Sitting in the High Court in Pretoria, Judge Ferdi Preller sentenced Fehrat Benbelkacem, 46, of Germiston, for the Novemmurder of Algerian businessman Makhlouf Osmani.īenbelkacem had invested his life savings of R300,000 to buy a fast-food outlet from Osmani, but his business collapsed when the rent was massively increased. NATIONAL NEWS - A depressed Algerian who shot dead a fellow countryman at a restaurant in Menlyn Centre in Pretoria two years ago was sentenced on Wednesday to 12 years' effective imprisonment.
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