Hack suspected love rivals
Mthimkhulu went to Pholani Bar to ask for keys to Nkomanzi Bottle Store and left. After a short while, a certain man was seen running towards the bar and shouting that Dlamini was stabbing Mthimkhulu. The witness is said to have gone to the bottlestore where he found Mthimkhulu lying in a pool of blood.
When he applied for bail, Dlamini told the court that the police did not entertain him when he told them about an alleged romantic relationship between Mthimkhulu and a police officer with whom he claimed she spent most evenings at the police camp.
The accused narrated that on January 27, 2017, he was invited by Mthimkhulu to her parental home in Pigg’s Peak. He said it was common for his long-time girlfriend to invite him over. He told the court that he went to the bottle store where she worked and she told him to wait at a certain bar until she knocked off in the evening.
Dlamini submitted that he went to the bar close-by to kill time and at 8pm, he went to check on Mthimkhulu and found her friends waiting for her as well outside the bottlestore.
The suspect alleged that Mthimkhulu asked to go to the club with her friends for drinks after which they would meet later and proceed to her place to retire for the night.
He said later in the night, he called Mthimkhulu
on her mobile phone and she informed him that she was waiting for a taxi to join him. Seeing that she was not coming, he said he tried to call her again an hour later and he discovered that her phone had been switched off.
“I went to her place and spent the night at the gate,” he alleged.
The following morning, Dlamini stated that he went to look for her at her place of work and she was not there and he went back to her place but she had still not returned. He said he went back to her place of employment again.
Police
“When I got there I told her that I wanted to take my things that were at her place. She told me that I was not allowed to go to her place and seeing that she was refusing to give me my things, I went to the police to ask for assistance in getting my things back.
“The police refused to help me and stated that the woman in issue was a girlfriend of one of their colleagues and she spent most of her evenings at the police camp and moreover, they would not help me because I was drunk and I smelt of alcohol,” he submitted.
Dlamini further alleged that since the police did not assist him, he returned to the bottle store and tried to force Mthimkhulu to hand over the keys to her house for him to collect his belongings.
He said they fought over the keys and during the fight, he claimed to have seen love bite marks on her neck. The suspect alleged that he asked her about them and she told him to mind his own business because he did not own her. “She told me to leave and threw an empty beer bottle at me and missed. I once again tried to grab the keys from her and she tried to stab me with a knife she retrieved from under the counter and I grabbed it from her,” he added.
Dlamini stated that after dispossessing her of the knife, the deceased charged at him with a broken beer bottle. He said he tried to ward her off and in the process she got stabbed with the knife and she fell to the floor.
He said he checked her condition and called the police to report the incident. He alleged that the police took too long to attend to the scene and he walked up to the police station. He said when he went to report the incident to the police, he was not aware that Mthimkhulu had died.
Dlamini stated that he will tender a plea of not guilty at trial. He said he did not kill Mthimkhulu intentionally and alleged that she was the aggressor. Dlamini was granted bail and he got involved in a love relationship with another woman and he was arrested again for allegedly stabbing his new lover’s parents. The trial continues today.