Flabba’s death ‘self-defence’
THE woman who has admitted to stabbing Flabba to death has been released on bail after telling the court she was defending herself.
Sindisiwe Manqele, 26, who was dating hiphop musician Nkululeko “Flabba” Habedi, was released on R10 000 bail by the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court in Johannesburg.
She faces a murder charge for killing Habedi, 37, who was declared dead in his Alexandra home last week.
The Skwatta Kamp group member, who was buried on Sunday, sustained a fatal stab wound to his heart.
Economics student Manqele sat silently as her attorney, Amanda Vilakazi, read her statement in support of her bail application in court.
“I had been brutally attacked by [Habedi] the day,” the statement read.
She denied killing Habedi “unlawfully and intentionally”.
“There was imminent danger on my life . . . I killed [Habedi] in self-defence.”
According to a statement by the investigating officer, Constable Seila Shadrack Malaka, the couple had argued shortly before Habedi screamed that he had been stabbed.
The couple were alone in a room at the time.
Manqele allegedly told a relative she had stabbed Habedi.
She later cut her wrist with a broken bottle in front of police and family.
According to a medical report submitted by Dr Sipho Lukhozi, who examined Manqele at the Johannesburg prison, she had sustained wounds all over her body “due to a combination of blunt and sharp trauma”.
The wounds included tenderness on both sides of the lower jaw, superficial tenderness at the back of the neck and right side of the neck, and four stab wounds to her abdomen.
She was also limping and felt pain in the shoulders.
Opposing bail, prosecutor Percy Ramushu said the medical report had been exaggerated.
According to witnesses, he said, they had only seen self-inflicted wounds on her body.
Magistrate Gideon Schnetler said her wounds were too extensive to have been self-inflicted.
While a crowd outside the court continued to chant “No bail, no bail”, Schnetler said the public tended to get emotional in cases like this, but “as time goes by it subsides”.
Only members of the media and a certain number of family members were allowed in the court following chaos at Manqele’s first appearance last week.
Manqele said she was in the final year of her studies in economics at Griffith College in Dublin, Ireland.
She would not return to live in Alexandra if released.