Killer laments state of his family
THE Gugulethu tavern owner found guilty of murdering his wife five years ago has apologised to his family, but denied he was the killer.
Thembile Vokozela said: “I apologise to my mother-inlaw, I also don’t know what happened. I am going through pain and suffering.
‘‘I am asking for an opportunity to go and discipline my children because there has been a change (since the arrest).
‘‘I still maintain to my family that by now there would have been somebody who has been found (arrested) of what happened.
“The State set a barrier between me and my children. It has been difficult for my children since I have been arrested. I would like to give my children some fatherly love.”
Vokozela was convicted of shooting his wife Ntombekhaya 12 times – with five of those shots in the back of her head – on December 28, 2013. This was 20 days after she had laid an assault charge against him with the police.
Ntombekhaya was last seen with Vokozela when they were at a liquor store on the day she was killed.
The following day, the couple did not answer their phones, and in the evening police found Ntombekhaya’s body on the ground level of their house.
Vokozela was found unconscious on the upper level of the house and taken to hospital.
Social worker Phathiswa Nakile testified that Vokozela should be given custodial sentence.
She said: “I don’t agree,” when prosecutor Lenro Badenhorst asked if a non-custodial sentence was an option for Vokozela, who disputed parts of the social worker’s report.
I am asking for an opportunity to go discipline my children as there has been a change
He also said there was crucial information that he told Nakile, which was not part of the report before the court.
Vokozela’s legal representative Joseph Weeber said his client had told him he mentioned to Nakile that his liquor business was robbed under the watch of his son Mabhuti, and that the latter was not competent to run the business.
Vokozela said he felt “ashamed and disappointed” in the manner in which his trial was conducted by Badenhorst “dragging his family and children” to testify against him.
He told the court of his financial woes, saying he owed four suppliers about R1 million.
He said that when he was convicted last month, there was R11 000 in his business bank account, and that he owed the South African Revenue Service R3.5m.
It emerged in court yesterday that the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court had convicted Vokozela of firing a firearm negligently in 1995, and the court ruled that he was not fit to possess a firearm.
The case continues today to allow for Badenhorst and Weeber to argue for a harsher and a lesser sentence, respectively.