Alberton mom convicted of abuse, rape & murder of daughter (2) maintains that she's innocent

Please note that the following story is of a sensitive nature.

JOHANNESBURG - An Alberton mother and her husband have been convicted of shocking acts of abuse committed against their two-year-old daughter and ultimately her murder, still maintaining her innocence.

In June, Belinda and Stefanus Bezuidenhout were found guilty of the abuse as well as the rape and murder of their little girl, Chane Bezuidenhout.

Chane Bezuidenhout was force-fed, made to swallow her own vomit, hit against a wall and smeared with faeces. She was also raped and ultimately throttled to death.

Her mother, Belinda Bezuidenhout, was convicted of her murder and her father, of being an accessory after the fact thereto.

Belinda took the stand in mitigation of sentence on Wednesday. She has put the blame on her husband, adamant she couldn’t talk about something she still maintains she never did.

She did insist she was sorry for not having "done more" and that she was heartbroken, saying that no one understood what she was going through. 

She suggested she may be depressed and asked the court to consider that she "still [had] love in [her] heart" when sentencing her.

State advocate Riana Williams put it to her, though, that she had no remorse and that the unchallenged evidence before the court was that she had put her hands around her daughter’s throat and watched the life go out of her eyes as she throttled her to death.