Ex-cop found not guilty of murder after a year in jail

State’s case falls apart, forensics carries the day

FORMER Kidd’s Beach Detective Constable Wanda Fose has been acquitted of murder by the Mdantsane regional court – almost a year after being behind bars.

Magistrate Twanet Olivier acquitted Fose and co-accused Avumile Balfour, who is his cousin, last month because state witnesses had contradicted each other. However, Fose will not immediately return to his detective duties because he was found guilty by an internal SAPS disciplinary hearing and dismissed.

He has appealed the SAPS ruling and the case is still ongoing.

The officer was arrested last September, along with his cousin, and they were charged with assault, kidnapping, murder and defeating the ends of justice.

Their arrest followed the death of Fose’s next-door neighbour, 22-yearold Simphiwe Jidana.

At the time, police alleged that Fose claimed that Jidana had shot himself with a state firearm belonging to Fose, hours after a break-in at the policeman’s Mdantsane NU8 house.

Fose allegedly told his colleagues that his house had been burgled and that his firearm had been stolen.

He said later, a bloodied Jidana turned up on his doorstep and that he (Fose) had rushed him to Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, where he died.

Vulindlela police station’s detective branch commander, Captain Samuel Xhamani, the lead investigator in the case, testified against the accused.

He gave a different version to that of Fose. “The two accused suspected that the deceased had been involved in the break-in where the state firearm and a laptop was stolen.

“They went to the home of the deceased and found him sitting on top of his bed with a friend.

“They began assaulting and strangling them [and] when the deceased denied knowledge of the break-in, [Fose] pulled out a firearm and shot the deceased.”

Xhamani said Fose then dragged the deceased to his car, where they wanted to put him in the boot but changed their minds.

“They placed him at the back of the passenger seat and rushed him to hospital, where he was declared dead,” Xhamani said during the bail application last year.

“Days after the shooting [Fose] approached the deceased’s friend and promised him R5 000 to change his statement implicating him in the murder. The friend, who is now a key state witness, declined,” Xhamani said.

The state called Jidana’s friend, Fezile Vumazonke, to testify during the trial in April this year.

He told the court that Fose entered the deceased’s house and shot him, causing him to fall on the bed.

He said Fose and Balfour then dragged the deceased outside the house and tortured him by inserting pliers into the gunshot wound.

The state called a third witness, Idah Williams, who lived with Jidana.

Williams testified that she lived with the deceased in the house but had not noticed any blood on the bed sheets or the floor. Fose remained adamant throughout the trial that Jidana shot himself and later came to his house and asked to be taken to hospital.

His version of events was corroborated by a ballistic expert from Pretoria, who told the court on July 24 that primary gunshot residue was discovered on Jidana’s right hand. —