Neighbour is next witness in Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, Zandile Khumalo excused

The Pretoria high court called Khaya Ngcatshe as its next witness in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial on Tuesday.

Ngcatshe is a neighbour of the Khumalo family in Vosloorus.

TimesLIVE spoke to Ngcatshe shortly after the October 2014 shooting. He described how he had helped carry the mortally wounded Meyiwa to his BMW X6, so he could be rushed to hospital.

The Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper had been relaxing with his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo at her family home, with five others, when he was shot.

After six days of testimony and being grilled by the defence, Zandile Khumalo has been excused from the witness box.

The evidence from Kelly’s sister was that two intruders barged into their mother’s house, demanding money and cellphones. She testified that three gunshots went off that night.

Before she was excused, judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng sought clarity on some aspects of her testimony in light of questions put to her.

Lawyers for the defence disputed that intruders had entered the house, accusing her of fabricating her evidence and asserting that the person who killed Meyiwa could have been among those who were in the house with him.

Mokgoatlheng said some of the propositions put to the witness baffled his common sense.

Referring to Zandile’s testimony on how they rushed Meyiwa to hospital after he was wounded, Mokgoatlheng asked why they would go to the effort to save Meyiwa by taking him to the hospital if they killed him.

“Why would you take all of these efforts to save his life after having succeeded in killing him? Then you take him to the hospital, so that he can be saved, in other words because if you take a person who has been shot to the hospital, you want to save his life. When [afterwards] you all go back to the house where you killed him? All of you can you explain whether it makes sense,” Mokgoatlheng said.

In response, Zandile said she was also surprised, as a lot of the suppositions put to her during questioning had made her feel powerless.

Mokgoatlheng said he was surprised by Zandile’s evidence that she was the person who had informed the neighbours about the incident.

“The neighbours, didn’t they see anybody running along the street, either up or down?” the judge said. “Because it’s amazing that in the ‘township’, a person just vanishes, with many gossips, no, not even one person said, ‘I saw somebody jumping a fence at Khaya’s.’ Nobody saw anything?”

To this, Zandile said police took statements from neighbours and she believes some may have seen something but their statements have not yet been read in court.

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