Court told of two shootings at the Ndudula residence
Forensic expert argues one cartridge fired from CZ was rusty
There may have been another shooting at the Ndudula residence prior the deadly September 14 2016 incident which left politician Sakhekile Ndudula dead.
This is if an old and rusty bullet cartridge found by investigators is anything to go by. Sakhekile’s widow Bulelwa stands accused of his murder.
The East London high court on Tuesday heard that of the cartridges found on the day, several were fired from a 9mm parabellum calibre firearm, while one was fired from a 7.65mm CZ model semi-automatic pistol belonging to Sakhekile. Sakhekile was shot with a 9mm.
The defence team, led by advocate Mike Maseti, on Monday brought evidence to court showing the cartridges found had been fired from two different guns.
They argued such evidence meant there were two shooters on the day Sakhekile died.
However, police forensic analyst Captain Lulamile Kamteni told judge Igna Stretch there was no way the cartridge from the CZ had been fired on the same day.
The officer, who was summoned from Port Elizabeth a day after the deadly shooting, told the court the CZ cartridge had been discovered in the yard, but not inside the house where the other cartridges were found.
He ruled out the possibility it was fired on the same day because “it was damaged, old, broken into half and had rust”.
“I concluded that such a bullet jacket was there for a very long time, meaning it was fired a long time before the September 14 incident,” he said.
Kamteni said he had linked the “bullet jacket” to Sakhekile’s 7.65mm CZ gun after he requested investigators to forward the gun to him for tests.
He told the court he could not estimate when the cartridge had been fired or how long it had lain where it was found.
The defence closed its case on Tuesday after calling to the stand a Mdantsane police officer whose gun was confiscated for over a year after it was suspected to have been used in Sakhekile’s shooting.
East London’s harbour port of entry’s Sergeant Zola Mgodeni was without his service pistol between March 2017 and April 2018. Ballistic tests discovered that his gun was “invalid”.
Mgodeni also told court that police had accused him, in front of his wife, of having a romantic relationship with the murder accused.
He testified that police in March 2017 visited his home in three vehicles and that they wanted to know how he knew the school teacher widow.
“I told them I knew her from her school after they had asked me to assist in their music classes after they had seen me assisting a school nearby.”
State prosecuting advocate Sakhumzi Mtsila put it to Mgodeni that investigators were merely doing their job by following up any information they had received.
The trial was postponed to Friday for both parties to present their final arguments.