Dad acquitted of murder says ‘I trust justice system, not cops’

THE man accused of killing the mother of his children has escaped the devastating fate of spending life in jail following a “not guilty” finding after standing trial for murder.

Thulani Khumalo was acquitted by the Western Cape High Court on August 4 this year. Charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit murder, murder and defeating the administration of justice, his trial which started in May was set to determine whether he had planned the murder of Ruwayda Solomons before she was tragically shot in the head during a hijacking in Khayelitsha three years ago. His lawyer, Office Mtini, managed to obtain a “not guilty” finding from Acting Judge Nonthuthuzelo Ralarala.

Khumalo said the day he heard the verdict, he couldn’t believe it.

“I was confused, this was my first time being arrested, first time in the dock. I looked left and right, I didn’t know what they were saying.”

He told how he remembered Solomons being shot. “We were attacked by three armed men, they forced us to get out of the car. I told her to get out because I could see they were just looking for the car, so I got out and noticed two men on her side, and then I heard gunshots.

“I don’t know how and… the reasons but to lose my wife and at the end get arrested, for what?” Khumalo said.

According to court documents, Khumalo gave a statement to Khayelitsha police after the incident in February 2019. The detective assigned to the case interviewed Khumalo twice before he became a suspect and was arrested in days of the shooting.

Khumalo said: “I worked in construction in Ottery. So I was in Cape Town for work. She worked in Postmasburg in the Northern Cape. She was deployed there as she was a soldier. So she came for one reason, our jobs keeps us far from our kids, so we would meet up wherever we were and then go to the kids in KZN.”

Khumalo never got back to his kids that year and appeared in the Khayelitsha Magistrate’s Court on February 15, 2019. He was denied bail and spent the next three years as an awaiting trial detainee at Pollsmoor Prison.

Speaking about his time in prison, he said, “I’m not myself, still, until today, I’m not myself. What makes me feel bad is what I went through in prison. What I’ve lost, all my assets, everything.

“That is not a place a human being should be in. That place, eish, is where Satan lives … I know nothing about crime, but here you’ll find the fraudsters, killers, rapists and then you’ll find gangsterism, the gangsterism makes life very difficult in prison, very very difficult.”

He said the experience has traumatised him. “Most of the people in my life gave up on me. The statement from police disturbed and condemned my kids against me. They looked at me differently because they thought I killed their mother,” Khumalo said.

The court released Khumalo after Mtini brought an application for him to be discharged due to lack of evidence. The court found “the evidence presented by the State does not suggest that Khumalo committed any offence”.

Walking down the steps of the high court, Khumalo said: “I still trust the justice system, I just don’t trust the police. They took everything from me for evidence but look now.”