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SA Lesbian Killers Get 18 Year Jail Terms
Four South African men have been sentenced to 18 years in jail for stabbing and stoning a lesbian to death in 2006.
The BBC reports that the four men stoned and stabbed 19 year-old Zoliswa Nkonyana four times, just metres from her home in Khayelitsha, a Cape Town Township, in February 2006.
This week, Magistrate Raadiya Whaten ruled that the men - Lubabalo Ntlabathi, Sicelo Mase, Luyanda Londzi and Mbulelo Damb - targeted Nkonyana because of her sexual orientation.
LGBT rights campaigners in Khayelitsha have hailed the lengthy sentences handed down as setting a positive "precedent".
"The magistrate has named hate and intolerance on the basis of sexual hate and intolerance on the basis of sexual orientation as an aggravating factor in sentencing - that is the first time that has happened in a criminal trial in South Africa. It has therefore set a precedent," Jill Henderson of the Triangle Project told BBC's Focus on Africa programme.