Long jail sentences for notorious eShowe gang

A GANG of five robbers who terrorised the eShowe community between April and October 2015, have been sentenced to a total of 100 years imprisonment.

According to police reports, Mzuvele Innocent Manzini (32), Zakhele Mnguni (28), Thabiso Nyawo (26), Thobani Ntetha (25) and Njabulo Bonokwakhe Manqele (34) were convicted and sentenced in the Inkanyezi Regional Court on Friday.

Manzini was linked to two robbery cases and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for each, while Mnguni, Nyawo, Ntetha and Manqele were each sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for separate cases they were positively linked to.

In April 2015, a farmer and two employees were accosted by the armed group, who assaulted them, burnt them with an iron and robbed them of cash, valuables, and the farmer’s vehicle that was later found abandoned in a sugar cane field in the Ntumeni area.

In September that year the accused pretended to be hitchhikers and hijacked a 33-year-old medical doctor at gunpoint after he picked them up on the R66. The victim’s vehicle was also found abandoned in Ntumeni.

In October they robbed a 42-yearold man of his vehicle after he gave two of the gang members a lift on the R66 highway. He was robbed of his belongings and he was kept in the vehicle trunk while the criminals were trying to sell his vehicle.

He was later dumped in the bushes and his vehicle found abandoned, also in the Ntumeni area.

A few days later a removal company’s employees were driving from Pietermaritzburg to Nkandla when their truck broke down in Ntumeni.

While fixing the truck after a mechanic arrived, four gang members appeared and robbed them of cellphones, cash and the mechanic’s VW Caddy.

Another incident was registered in the Vuma area where a man who runs a tuck shop from a container was robbed of his property and a Nissan 1400 vehicle by three men at gunpoint.

They locked him inside the container and left.

King Cetshwayo Cluster Task Team detectives worked around the clock gathering the evidence and DNA and fingerprints linked the gang to all the crimes.

A sixth accused originally arrested, Themba Dlodlo, escaped from police custody and was fatally wounded during a shoot-out with police in 2016