Advocate wants 3 witnesses charged with perjury
MATSAPHA – Advocate Mduduzi ‘Tsotsi’ Mabila wants at least three of the 26 witnesses in the inquest into the death of Thabani Nkomonye to show cause why they should not be charged with perjury.
The three witnesses are Assistant Superintendent Mfanimpela Mazibuko the senior police officer from the Operational Support Services Unit (OSSU), the man who claimed to have witnessed the accident, Mathokoza Makhanya and his wife Patience Dlamini.
The advocate made this known yesterday when he was cross-examining Makhanya’s wife, who was asked to narrate what happened on the night of May 8, 2021, when her husband went to fetch her from Mahhala in Matsapha.
The witness claimed that on the day in question, she was from South Africa and she called her husband when she arrived at Ngwenya Border Gate and asked him to pick her up at Mahhala.
She stated that when she was at Langeni, Lobamba, her husband called and alerted her that he was delayed at Magumedzeni as there was a road traffic accident.
However, despite the delay, she alleged that she found him waiting for her at Galp Filling Station at Mahhala and he loaded her luggage and they went home. She said along the way, they did not speak much because she was stressed as she had lost some of her stuff in South Africa.
She submitted that when they were approaching Magumedzeni, she asked her husband to slow down as she saw police officers. She alleged that her husband told her that the police were at the scene where the accident happened.
“We stopped and my husband opened the window and asked the police officers if they had found the person and their response was to the negative. We then left and along the way, he told me that I should not be surprised as the police took his contacts and they might call him,” the witness submitted.
Consequences
Thereafter, Advocate Mabila said he did not know if the coroner told her what consequences she could face if she did not tell the truth under oath. The Coroner, Senior Magistrate Nonhlanhla Dlamini, told the witness that if she failed to tell the truth, she could be charged and locked up.
The advocate then asked her if she wanted the coroner to believe that when her husband called her about the accident, she never asked him about it and he did not tell her more as to what happened during the accident that delayed him.
In response, the witness claimed that she did not ask her husband about the accident. She claimed that she only read about it on social media.
Again, the advocate told the witness to remember the consequences which she could face if she failed to tell the truth. She said when she saw the police at Magumedzeni, she asked her husband to slow down as she thought that there was a roadblock.
Coroner
Mabila then asked if she wanted the coroner to believe that even at that time, her husband did not tell her what happened during the accident and she did not ask about it yet they found the police still at the accident scene. In response, the witness submitted that she was telling the truth.
“Do you honestly think we can believe that yet it was not logical?” the advocate asked.
In response, the witness claimed that she did not have interest in the matter because she was stressed about the things she lost in South Africa. Thereafter, the advocate claimed asked the witness if she expected them to be gullible.
He also asked why she did not remember that her husband alighted from the car, not that he opened the window only.
She claimed that she did not remember seeing her husband alighting from the car. The advocate said it was easy to notice a person who was alighting from the car than someone only opening a window. The witness alleged that it was cold on that night and she noticed that her husband opened the window because she felt the cold air.
“So, you do not want to tell the coroner where your husband took the deceased to?” the advocate asked.
The witness submitted that she did not know as she never asked him about the accident.
After that, Advocate Mabila asked her how was the state of her husband when he called her and when he picked her up at Mahhala. In response, the witness submitted that he was fine, not frightened.
The advocate asked her if she meant she could not see that her husband, whom she had lived with for about 15 years, was not fine.
Lying
He also asked if she meant that her husband was lying when he told the coroner that the accident affected him, thus he went to search for the driver of the car on the following Monday (May 10, 2021). The witness submitted that she did not know.
The advocate asked that even a day after the accident (Sunday May 9, 2021), none of them bothered to discuss what happened during the accident and she submitted that she would be lying if she would say she asked her husband anything about it.
The advocate then asked her that when she saw the matter being published, did she not ask her husband if this was the same accident which he had witnessed.
She claimed that she did not ask him because in the newspaper it was clearly mentioned where the accident took place.
“This witness is just like the other one, there is nothing we are going to get out of her,” the advocate said.
Thereafter, he said subject to instructions from the coroner, he intended taking instructions that the witness, together with the senior police officer from OSSU (Mazibuko) and her husband (Makhanya) should be called to show cause why they should not be charged with perjury.
Husband
He argued that what they did was to allegedly waste everyone’s resources. He then put it to the witness that her husband allegedly told her where he took Thabani’s body together with those he was with.
He added that she was allegedly not telling the truth because she was trying to conceal evidence.
In response, the witness submitted that she was not aware that there would be an inquest about the matter. She claimed that if she had known, she was going to ask her husband about the accident.
After that, the prosecutor, Fikile Dlamini told the witness that it was put to her husband that there was a point in time where police officers were allegedly deployed to guard their home.
She then asked her what she could say about that and she claimed that there was never a day their home was guarded by the police.