Court and Crime: Looking back on 2022
WHEN the new year starts at Kwazulu-natal courts after the festive season recess, all eyes will be on the Durban High Court as the trial against former ethekwini mayor and others will get under way in March.
Zandile Gumede and 21 others face charges of conspiracy to commit corruption, corruption, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and Municipal Systems Act; amounting to over R300 million.
In May, 61 alleged instigators charged over the July 2021 unrest and public violence will appear again in the Durban Magistrate’s Court.
They face charges of conspiracy to commit public violence, incitement to commit public violence and incitement to commit arson.
In the same month the trial against Sfiso Professor Ndlovu, 46, accused of killing his estranged wife, Kulukazi Ndlovu, 39, and burning her inside her car in April 2020, is due to begin.
Khulukazi had been missing for a few days when her car was found burnt and abandoned in a cemetery in Molweni. Ndlovu was arrested nearly six months after her charred body was found.
KZN courts had dealt decisively with perpetrators of Gender Based Violence handing down lengthy sentences.
In July, Njabulo Ndlovu pleaded guilty and was convicted of killing grandmother Zanele Ndlela, 65, her daughter, Simangele Ndlela, 46, and granddaughter Zenande Ndlela, 7, was handed five life sentences in the Pietermaritzburg High Court by Judge Thoba Poyo-dlwati.
Last month she also sentenced Sibusiso Bongekhaya Mvubu to life for the murder of his wife, Philisiwe, whom he had stabbed 13 times. He ha stabbed her, left her in their locked house, and hitch-hiked to Estcourt to his sister’s home.
In September Judge Kate Pillay in the Scottburgh High Court handed five life sentences to Thulani Themba Nhlumayo for the 2018 murders of Zane Phehlokwayo, Njabulo Handsom Ndovela, Siphosakhe Simai and Andile Professor Khowa during a robbery at Mama’s Tavern in Margate, and for killing Siyabonga Dindikazi in another robbery at Khowa’s Tavern in Port Shepstone. Nhlumayo had previously been sentenced to eight life sentences for eight murders committed in 1998 in Margate. He had served 15 years of his sentence.
He had been out on a presidential pardon when he committed the 2018 murders. He was one among 149 convicts recommended for pardon to the president at the time based because the offences committed were politically motivated and their release was within the context of national reconciliation.
A month before Nhlumayo’s sentence, the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court sentenced Petros M Mokoena to 10 years in jail for raping his blind neighbour, the widow of Mokoena’s late friend. At the time, Magistrate Siphiwe Hlophe said Mokoena was lucky he was sentenced after the new amendments to the Criminal Act which had previously prescribed a life term for those raping someone with a disability.
Before the recess on December 15, Sergeant Ayanda Ntombela was charged with the kidnapping and murder of Sihle Mtshare in the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court. He is out on R20 000 bail. Last week two of Mtshare’s family members were shot and killed by four men on the same day Ntombela was to appear in court.
Another police officer, Constable Lungisani Xaba, was charged with the murder of his 70-year-old mother. The officer, who remains behind bars after having been refused bail, is alleged to have assaulted the woman with a wooden plank with nails in it on May 6 in Kwadabeka, just outside Pinetown.
A Malvern couple alleged to have sexually violated a 13-year-old girl who is their friend’s child are due back in court on May 6 after their release on warning last month.
Hillcrest SAPS member Mlungisi Blessing Sikhakhane is charged with the murders of his long-time girlfriend, Sthembile Ngobese, and his girlfriend of fewer than five months, Enhle Majola.today, a Clermont teacher facing six counts of rape is back in court.