39-year-old Hellen being sentenced for homicide. (Photo: Michael Daniel).

The Gender-Based Violence Court in Juba convicted a woman on Wednesday to five years in jail for stabbing and killing her husband in a family dispute.

35-year-old Hellen Ben Joseph, working as a launderer, was arrested in July 2019, over the homicide incident.

Following her arrest, Hellen narrated to the police that the dispute started when she gave her husband money to buy food for the family as she was busy washing clothes in her shop.

The convict’s statement says her husband returned home drunk in the evening and started ordering her to cook for him.

The intoxicated husband reportedly punched Hellen and escalated his assault further by grabbing a knife and stabbing her wife in the hand and right leg.

Infuriated, Hellen then disarmed the husband and retaliated by stabbing him in the chest with the same knife, leaving him in a pool of blood.

The medical report indicates that the man died due a knife wound that penetrated 15-centimeter deep into his heart.

The general prosecutor filed a murder case against Hellen under Section 206 of the South Sudan Penal Act 2006.

Through the trial, defense lawyer Victory Geoffrey argues that his client acted under a sudden provocation and called on the court to change the offence from murder to culpable homicide.

The court eventually changed the crime description and Hellen was found guilty under section 210 of the South Sudan Penal Act 2008.

The GBV judge Andrew Jushow Lado then sentenced her to five years in jail as he read out the verdict on Wednesday.

“Convict Helen Ben Joseph the court sentenced you as follows imprisonment for five years with effect from the date of arrest, on the first of July 2019 for Violet in section 210 of the penal code 2008,” the verdict read.

“The parties have to appeal this judgment within 15 days from today. Issued under my hands and the seal of the GBV court on the day of the sixth of March 2024.”

The section used in the sentencing says whoever, while deprived of the power of self-control due to grave and sudden provocation, causes the death of any other person by mistake or accident, commits the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

On her part, Helen Ben Joseph expressed her joy at the court’s decision as well as her regrets over the incident in an interview with Eye Radio.

“I thank God and the court for this ruling, and I would like to say that it was not intentional that I killed by husband.”

“I was waiting for the ruling from 2019, and I hope that the husbands will try to solve their family problems without violence, I believe that the court was fair to me.”