LEBOGANG SEALE
M OLEMO “Jub Jub” Maarohanye has denied killing four schoolchildren and injuring two others in a car crash – and dared anyone alleging so to prove it.
The hip hop artist also denied yesterday that he had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and blamed the media for “misleading the whole country and the world”.
“I still disagree that I bumped into any kids. Prove it beyond reasonable doubt that I woke up and went to kill those children,” he said in the Protea Magistrate’s Court.
Maarohanye took to the wit- ness stand for the first time yesterday and used the opportunity to lash out at the media, saying it was persecuting him.
“The media has taken everybody for a ride… If I had the privilege… I would have liked to speak to the families (but) I was deprived of doing so. The media have their own agenda,” he said.
Maarohanye also lambasted the “negative” media coverage a few hours after the accident.
“Why is it that my name came up, and that I was on cocaine? How is it that everything is about me?
“It’s a pity that nobody knows what I am going through and what I have had to deal with,” he said.
His statements outraged the relatives of the victims, who threatened him during the adjournment.
“Who killed our children then? Was it the bushes?” one parent yelled at him.
Maarohanye and his co-accused, Themba Tshabalala, are facing four counts of murder, two of attempted murder, and driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
They allegedly crashed their Mini Coopers into a group of schoolchildren in Mdlalose Drive, Protea Glen, on March 8 last year.
Yesterday, Maarohanye denied that Tshabalala was a friend, saying his co-accused had merely offered to help him with directions.
Maarohanye and a friend, Tumelo Mokoka, were on their way to view sound equipment in Protea Glen.
“It came to a point when (Tshabalala’s) car wasn’t there anymore. I looked over my right shoulder and saw (it). I was on the left and he was on the right. Before I came to the bend, I saw his car on my side. I then heard a bang,” Maarohanye told the court.
“I just held on to my (steering) wheel hard and looked forward. I then blacked out. I was panicking and shaking…
“He (Mokoka) sat me down… I heard screams and cries saying ‘kids, kids, kids’,” Maarohanye said.
He said he then saw a metro police officer assaulting Tshabalala.
When residents at the accident scene threatened to attack him and Tshabalala, he asked to be put in a police van.
He said he had learnt about the dead children from Mokoka while in the police van.
“I asked him how (but) he couldn’t explain.”
On police officers testing him for alcohol, Maarohanye said: “I blew five times (but) (the police officer) said the pipes were not working… The first test came out (at) 000. The second one also showed 000.”
He had then been taken to a vocational centre in Dube.
“They tested me with the same type of pipe. It came out (at) 000.”
Urine samples were taken, but Maarohanye denied that he had taken drugs.
“I never used that substance.”
In his brief address to the court, he said: “I just want to say this whole accident thing has been traumatic to the families and everybody else… I am really sorry about what happened on that day. I merely happened to be part of the accident. I didn’t plan it.”
Maarohanye said under cross-examination there had been no traces of blood and no damage on his Mini Cooper, and that was how he knew he had not crashed into the children.