Durban — Three men charged with the murder of an accused who had formerly been suspected to have been linked to a mass shooting are expected to appear again in the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Siphamandla Hadebe, 24, was allegedly gunned down in broad daylight in Wyebank five days after being released on R8 000 bail last year.
Hadebe and his co-accused, Njabulo Mchunu, 31, and Comfort Ngubo, 22, were granted bail on August 16 charged with possession of a firearm without a licence, as well as ammunition. The three were said to have been linked to the mass shooting in Savannah Park, but were never charged with murder.
Charges against Hadebe, Mchunu, and Ngubo were this year provisionally withdrawn. Hadebe was allegedly shot and killed by men who arrived at a house in Wybank in a white Ford double cab bakkie with a police registration plate, suspected to be fake, and another person was injured when the men opened fire.
The pre-trial for Siyabonga Shozi, 36, Nkosinathi Gumede, 38, and Nkosingiphile Nzimande, 29, is expected to take place in the regional court.
On Thursday the men’s defence lawyer, Arvina Arjoon from Arvina Harricharan Attorneys, explained that while the matter had been set for pre-trial on Monday there was apparently new evidence that had surfaced, but the defence was still waiting for the Senior Public Prosecutor (SPP) to supply it with this.
“Without this new evidence being provided to the defence as yet it is unlikely that the pretrial will go ahead, but we will see on Monday,” she said.
In July the State handed the defence new statements after it had gone through representations made by the men’s counsel around concerns it had previously raised verbally in court, namely the men’s alibis that were unverified by the State, outstanding DNA, and ballistics.
In August, Arjoon handed back further supplementary representations based on the statements given to her by the State on the last occasion.
However, she has yet to get a response from the SPP concerning these further supplementary representations.
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