Mthatha woman demands justice after court frees suspect

A Mthatha woman has slammed the criminal justice system for allowing a man who allegedly shot and injured her nephew to walk off scot-free.

Vuyelwa Soyizwaphi, 51, said though police had shown up after the incident, the man had never been arrested.

Instead, she was told, he was placed under house arrest.

She said the incident had happened in Ntlambo Flats, a residential complex in Mthatha, in January 2019.

But the case came before court only nine months later, and when it did, the man was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

“I want this case be to retried so that my nephew can get justice,” she said.

Soyizwaphi said her nephew, Malibongwe Xhelle, had been 31 at the time of the incident, which her husband and son both witnessed.

They all live in the same residential complex where the shooting occurred. The alleged shooter works with her husband.

A bullet went through Xhelle’s stomach and exited out the back of his body.

He was rushed to hospital and has recovered from the injury.

Soyizwaphi wrote to Eastern Cape police commissioner LtGen Liziwe Ntshinga, describing how the alleged shooter, whose name is known to the Daily Dispatch, had gone to

The police did not even put the attacker behind bars, but instead said they were putting him under house arrest

report the incident afterwards.

She said police had arrived at the scene hours later, and told her husband the gun used in the shooting had been confiscated.

“The police did not even put the attacker behind bars, but instead said they were putting him under house arrest while the investigation continued,” she stated in her letter.

She said a few days later, the investigating officer had told her the weapon had been sent for ballistic testing in Port Elizabeth and that the suspect would appear in court on January 15 2019.

But on January 30, she was told the gun was still in Mthatha.

She said the man had not appeared in the Mthatha magistrate’s court until September 25 2019, when he was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

On October 2, Soyizwaphi wrote another letter, this time to the head of prosecutors at the Mthatha magistrate’s court, laying a formal complaint against the prosecutor who represented the state in her nephew’s case.

She accused him of refusing to enter some crucial information, including photos of the crime scene and her letter to Ntshinga, as part of the evidence for the case. The Dispatch e-mailed questions to provincial police but no response had been received by print deadline.

National Prosecuting Authority regional spokesperson Luxolo Tyali said they had carried out their own investigation.

“We don’t feel there is any wrongdoing on the part of the prosecutor, but we invite her [Soyizwaphi] to come to our offices so that we can see what advice we can give her,” he said.