Saying goodbye to designer wear
It will soon be prison garb only for Thandi Maqubela, found guilty this week of killing her judge husband
CONVICTED murderer Thandi Maqubela, who has become known during her trial for designer outfits and colourful head wraps, will be allowed to wear her own clothes in Pollsmoor Prison until she is sentenced in 10 days’ time.
After that, she will have to exchange her Louis Vuitton wardrobe for prison-issue orange jumpsuits.
On Thursday, Maqubela was found guilty by the High Court in Cape Town of murdering her husband, acting Judge Patrick Maqubela, in their Bantry Bay flat in June 2009. She was also found guilty of forgery and fraud for attempting to alter his will.
Vela Mabena, her co-accused, was acquitted of murder because the state was unable to prove his involvement beyond reasonable doubt.
Maqubela’s son, Duma, told the Sunday Times on Friday that he was returning to the Eastern Cape and would consider whether to attend the widow’s sentencing on November 20. But he said “the only justified sentence would be life”.
Thursday had been an emotional day, he said. “There was a lot of emotion. The general mood was relief, but some of my aunts cried — and those weren’t tears of joy. They were a mixed bag of emotions and there was a deep sense of sadness. Our fears were that Thandi killed my father, but to hear the judge confirm that was hard to take.”
Duma said of Mabena: “If I never see him again, it will be too soon.”
The Department of Correctional Services’ James Small- berger said that Maqubela, who spent her first night in jail at Pollsmoor in Cape Town on Thursday, would be held in the section for those who have not been sentenced until her next court appearance. Prisoners there wear their own clothes until they are sentenced.
A pilot project in which remand detainees wear bright yellow clothing to make it easier to identify prisoners and prevent escapes is under way at Mthatha Prison, but Smallberger said these uniforms were not yet available in Pollsmoor.
Patrick Maqubela, a former MK veteran and Robben Island prisoner, was found dead on June 7 2009. Initially he was thought to have died of natural causes, but the strange disappearance and then reappearance of his cellphone in his flat following his death made in- vestigators suspicious.
In his judgment, Judge John Murphy said the judge’s phone had, in the days in which it was missing, closely mirrored the movements of Thandi Maqu- bela’s own phones, between Cape Town, Johannesburg and East London.
He found that there was not enough evidence to convict Mabena, but said the amount of contact between Maqubela and him in the days after the judge’s death was “indeed suspicious”.
This included phone calls and text messages, and the possibility of a face-to-face meeting between the two when their phones were tracked to the same cell tower at the same time on June 10.
He also found that when Maqubela told the police she did not have Mabena’s number, “her conduct implies that she wanted to get her story straight . . . before she spoke to the police and thus intimates that his conduct might have been less innocent than the accused would have us believe”.
An SMS Mabena sent to Maqubela expressing his condolences, even after he had phoned her several times, was “prima facie evidence of another possible ruse” by Maqubela
Our fears were that Thandi killed my father, but to hear the judge confirm that was hard to take
to conceal her involvement.
Mabena chose not to testify and dispute the prima facie evidence, causing the judge to rule that the only inference was that “both accused were lying about the extent and purpose of their contact in the days following the death of the deceased”.
Mabena’s attorney, Randall Titus, said his client was “celebrating” with his family and not available for interviews.
Medical tests were unable to determine the exact cause of the judge’s death.
Attempts to contact Maqubela’s attorney, Marius Broeksma, were unsuccessful.