Mawande first to field crossfire

During his testimony this week, Mawande Makhala contradicted his original statement made to investigating officer Xolani Petros on 2 August last year on several points, as follows:

In the statement, he said that on

22 July 2018 (a day before the murder) he was with his brother and key state witness Luzuko and others at the Pop Inn tavern in Concordia. However, when confronted this week with the cellphone data records that showed calls between him and his brother when they were supposedly sitting together in the small tavern, he said he was drinking at the time and doesn’t remember the events, but he seemed to remember what he drank on the night, what time he got home, who took him home and where he slept.

After he first denied knowing the person (Dumile) who was with his brother at the tavern – saying it was "someone from the Eastern Cape" who Luzuko had given a lift – and later admitting he knew the man, Mawande replied that when Petros wrote down the statement he might have confused events.

When Mawande was arrested on 14 August 2018 after his brother Luzuko turned state witness the day before (13 August), all his belongings had been loaded onto a truck, as was testified by officer Petros. The reason for this, Mawande said, was that he had feared for his life – reprisal from a community who loved Molosi – because his name had come up during the first appearance six days earlier (on 8 August 2018) of Mandla Tyololo, the fourth man arrested after the murder (whose case on a charge of conspiracy to murder Molosi in 2016 is being tried separately from the murder trial).

The state argued, however, that he did this because Luzuko had called him to say the police were on their way to him (Mawande) after he had spilled the beans.

After denying that he pointed out Molosi's house to Dumile, the judge asked him who out of the three men (Dumile, Luzuko and himself) knew Molosi and where he stayed and was in other words most likely the person to point out the house, he conceded it would have to be him.

Mawande said it was Waxa who first got him a job at the municipality in 2003, to replace his oldest brother when the latter could no longer do the job (demolishing illegal structures), due to health issues.

In 2005, Mawande, who admitted that he only has Standard 1 (Grade 3), was appointed as a senior clerk at the municipality in 2005 but he has denied that Waxa had organised this position for him. When judge RCA Henney asked him based on what qualification did he get the job, he replied, “I don’t have qualifications. The first job was a better fit because I am illiterate … it was my luck.”