MBHORO IN HOT WATER
Mbhoro, ‘ a ghost ’, a coerced witch confession and a razed home...
ON OCTOBER 16 last year, viewers of Soweto TV watched in awe while an East Rand mother “confessed” to being a witch and told viewers how she practised witchcraft.
Her children, aged 16, 13 and 10, were also seen during the show.
What the viewers of The Incredible Happenings, hosted by controversial prophet Paseka “Mbhoro” Motsoeneng, did not know was that Miriah Sithole was coerced and threatened to “confess” or else her house would be burnt down.
This is according to court papers she has now filed, suing Mbhoro, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Soweto Television and one Lindiwe Vilakazi.
Sithole, of Zonkezizwe, Ekurhuleni, says her house, which she also used as an office, was in any case razed by an angry mob two days after she made the “confes- sion”.
She says the actions of the respondents caused her loss of income, pain and suffering.
In her affidavit Sithole says Vilakazi, her daughter and two officers arrived at her home on October 10 last year and accused her of practising witchcraft.
She says Vilakazi and her daughter told the officers that Sithole had taught them witchcraft and that she had killed her husband and stored his body in Vilakazi ’ s fridge.
The court papers further state that the Vilakazis alleged that Sithole’s elder daughter had had an abortion and that they were using the child’s ghost for witchcraft.
Sithole says she told them that she was not a witch and the officers told her that they would come back to her home with a government prophet to pray for her and to cast out evil spirits from her home.
That same day in the afternoon, Mbhoro and his platoon of bodyguards came flanked by community members, two police officers and a camera crew.
She was home with her children and says she was surprised to see Mbhoro because she was expecting to see a “government prophet”.
“I asked the camera crew not to video my children because they were minors,” she says.
“But they proceeded to record us. At that stage, his bodyguards were pushing my children around and forced their way into my house,” she adds in court papers.
She says Mbhoro kept telling her that he was going to remove evil spirits from her house and he started throwing things around the house.
“It is at this stage that he forced me to say that I was a witch and that I possessed evil things in my house. He threatened to burn down my house if I did not do as I was told,” she says.
Her house was burnt down by angry members of the community two days after she made the “confession”, the court documents say.
She says the TV station did not get her consent to broadcast the programme in which faces of her children were exposed and that nothing had been done in order to protect their identities.
“The actions of the respondents have robbed me and my children of the freedom to walk on the streets without being called witches.
“My children have stopped playing in the streets because they are called witches. My elder daughter failed her matric because of depression,” she says.
By late Friday afternoon, none of the respondents had filed their opposing papers.