UNTIL KNIFE DO US PART...
Man slaughters his pregnant wife
A BUSINESSMAN and IT specialist is accused of brutally slaughtering his pregnant wife in cold blood. The couple had been married for five years.
The incident, which took place in Cosmo City, Joburg in December last year, shocked neighbours and left responding police traumatised. Court papers allege that Tshimologo Huma (33) locked the gates and all doors to their modest home, repeatedly stabbed his wife Carla and slit her throat.
After the murder, Huma allegedly threw the knife into his neighbour’s yard.
Police say before the alleged crime took place, Carla called them for help.
But they helplessly circled the house while listening to her screams inside the house.
The Randburg Magistrates’ Court further heard that Carla, a qualified radiographer, had applied for and obtained a court interdict against her husband of five years in 2009.
Carla, who was four months pregnant at the time of her death, alleged in the application then that Huma subjected her to verbal, physical and emotional abuse.
It is further alleged that before his wife’s death, Huma allegedly forced her to nominate him as the sole beneficiary of her life insurance policies.
Papers before the court show how Huma had on one occasion allegedly refused to wish Carla a happy Mother’s Day – saying she was not his mother.
This despite the fact that the couple already had a three- year-old child at the time.
In a statement before the court during his bail application, Huma pleaded amnesia and said he did not kill her intentionally.
“My wife and I were fighting and it was not my intention to kill her. We fought and I never thought she would die, ” he said, adding that he only regained his senses when he was inside the police van.
“After I was told what had happened, I started to cry because I really loved the deceased. I could not believe what had happened.”
Inside the court this week, prosecutor Poppy Mogagabe handed copies of the docket over to Huma’s defence attorney, Glen Mabasa, who asked the court to grant the defence a month’s postponement to consider all the documentation.
Outside the court, Huma’s late wife’s family and members of their church displayed placards calling for the death penalty.
Some placards read: “Stop women abuse ” and “Life Sentence for murderers”.
The court initially denied Huma bail after ruling that he was a dangerous man who had allegedly murdered his wife in the presence of the police, but the South Gauteng High Court overturned this order in April and released him on R10 000 bail.
Magistrate Vincent Pienaar extended his bail and postponed the case to next month.
chelemuk@sundayworld.co.za