Durban — The Durban High Court will hand down judgment next week in the case of the murder of Thulani Nxumalo in September 2018.
Nxumalo was an ANC branch leader at KwaNdengezi. The State alleges that he was killed because he was investigating accused induna Felokwakhe Ndlovu for allegedly selling land for his personal gain.
The State argued that this didn’t sit well with Ndlovu and as a result he conspired with his co-accused, Nkosiyanda Ndlovu and Nkosinathi Mbambo, to kill Nxumalo.
On Thursday, State senior advocate Lawrence Gcaba told the court why the station commander, a Colonel Zulu, wasn’t called to testify as to how the meeting in the station about land disputes went.
The defence counsel on Wednesday had asked why the station commander wasn’t asked to come to court when it questioned the credibility of State witnesses Celani Dlamini and Mzi Makhubalo.
Gcaba said Zulu was going to come but they learnt that advocate Zandile Mshololo, who had represented Felokwakhe earlier, had said Colonel Zulu would be their witness.
Gcaba further said they had found out that Mshololo had spoken to Zulu.
“You don’t need to call five parties for them to say the same thing,” Gcaba said.
He told the court that the two witnesses who were present at the meeting corroborated on what they said.
Gcaba further told the court that he had reminded Felokwakhe during his cross-examination that they had said they would bring in the station commander but the answer was that if he was needed he would come.
Nkosiyanda was represented by attorney Shaheen Seedat.
He said his client never mentioned how he was involved in planning the killing of Nxumalo. Seedat read his confession statement, which Nkosiyanda denied making. However, Gcaba argued that Nkosiyanda’s statement mentioned how he was involved in the planning of the offence.
“Seedat’s argument cannot be sustained because Nkosiyanda willingly said to Brigadier Mkhanazi that he wanted to make a statement to tell about his involvement in the offence,” Gcaba said.
Gcaba quoted a few lines in his confession and told the court that it must look at his choice of words. Gcaba added that Nkosiyanda transported someone who was going to commit a crime and went to hide the murder weapon. Gcaba argued about what Mbambo’s attorney, Manoj Hardeo, had said.
Hardeo said Dlamini had testified to implicate the trio. Gcaba said Dlamini only knew Mbambo since the day they met at the Mangabantu Shisanyama after the crime was committed.
Gcaba said Dlamini had no motive implicating Mbambo. He also added that Dlamini knew of previous plans to kill Nxumalo that Felokwakhe had made. Gcaba said Dlamini had no motive to slay Nxumalo, but Felokwakhe had.
Gcaba said when Dlamini learnt that Nxumalo had been killed and Felokwakhe confessed to him he was curious. That is when his friend told him everything, not knowing that he would testify against him.
The three men are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, murder, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. They are remanded in custody.
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