Life sentences for killers of witness

Victim’s mother too traumatised to face men who executed her daughter in 2013

THREE men behind the cold-blooded execution of a witness, who was shot multiple times and left to die, were each sentenced to life in prison yesterday.

While the families and friends of Ndumiso Booi, 24, Mzolimo Makisi, 33, and Mawethu Khaka, 29, filled the gallery of the Port Elizabeth High Court as Judge Dayalin Chetty delivered his judgment, the family of their victim was glaringly absent.

State advocate Marius Stander said Zanele Jonga’s mother – a colonel in the South African Police Service – was too traumatised to face her daughter’s killers as they were finally convicted of the 2013 shooting.

“This is one of the most heinous of crimes,” Stander said.

Chetty found that the cellphone evidence, although circumstantial, proved unequivocally that Booi had ordered Makisi and Khaka to carry out the hit on Jonga, 32, on June 12 2013.

Jonga had in October 2012 pointed Booi out in a lineup as the man who robbed her and her boss as he gave her a lift home one evening.

Two days before she was due to testify against him, she was assassinated outside her workplace.

“While the state’s case rests solely on circumstantial evidence, the evidence needs to be considered as a whole,” Chetty said.

He said the cellphone evidence showed how Booi contacted his girlfriend, Thandeka Mange, on June 12, who then placed him on a conference call with Makisi and Khaka.

Mange then telephoned Jonga’s place of work to ascertain her whereabouts, and a short while later, Makisi and Khaka’s cellphones clocked in at the Motherwell library tower, close to where Jonga was shot dead that evening.

Chetty said the cellphone evidence created what could be described as a network around the accused.

“It matters not who fired the fatal shot or shots . . . The accused clearly acted in common purpose.”

Mange was also executed after she gave a statement to the police.

Chetty said Khaka, who was the only accused to testify, was clearly incapable of telling the truth. He dismissed his evidence in its entirety.

He convicted Booi on charges of robbery, unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, and Jonga’s murder.

Makisi and Khaka were convicted of murder and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Booi, Makisi and Khaka laughed and hugged family and friends after life sentences were imposed on them.

Stander said he had wanted to call Jonga’s mother to testify in aggravation of sentence but she was too traumatised to come to court.

“The facts speak for themselves. The accused showed absolutely no remorse. They gunned their victim down and left her to die in her driveway like a dog,” Stander said.