Pretoria – October 26, 2014, left an indelible mark on the sore hearts of football-loving South Africans after the unceremonious demise of beloved national team goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa.
Today, eight years after the fact, officially marks an eight-year painful landmark since news filtered on the October 2014 night regarding the fatal shooting of Meyiwa, who at the time had visited his then-girlfriend and mother of his child, singer and socialite Kelly Khumalo, at her mother’s home in Vosloorus in Gauteng.
In the house that fateful day was Meyiwa, Kelly and her younger sister, Zandi, their mother Ntombi (MaKhumalo), Longwe Twala, Meyiwa’s friends Mthokozisi Thwala and Tumelo Madlala, and Kelly’s then 4-year-old son, Christian, and Thingo, Kelly’s daughter with Senzo.
IOL takes a look at the timeline, a close look at the many events which have characterised the high-adrenaline story since the events of October 2014.
While the South African discourse was dominated by the mystery around the death of the Bafana Bafana ace goalkeeper, a few days later, on October 28, 2014, police released identikits of the two men believed to be behind the brutal killing of Meyiwa.
A reward of R250 000 was also offered for information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the killers.
October 31, 2014, police arrested Vosloorus resident, 27-year-old Zamokuhle Mbatha, in connection with the murder of Meyiwa. Mbatha was well known to the Khumalo family.
November 1: Meyiwa was buried in a state-sponsored funeral and a big send-off event was hosted at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.
November 11: Mbatha makes his second appearance at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court where charges against him are withdrawn due to lack of evidence. In 2019, Mbatha sues the State, demanding R17.7m as compensation.
2015 until 2019: Samuel Meyiwa, Senzo’s father, is constantly in the media pleading for help in catching his son’s killers and reaching out to police about a tip-off.
Former police minister Fikile Mbalula – who is now the minister of transport, promised Samuel that when he was appointed police minister in 2017 that one of his top priorities was to crack the Senzo murder case.
Unfortunately, no arrests took place under Mbalula’s administration.
July 29, 2019: After five years of seeking justice for the murder of his son, Samuel Meyiwa dies a broken man at his uMlazi home. He had been bedridden after suffering a stroke in August 2018.
October 27, 2019: Sifiso Meyiwa, the brother of the late Senzo and his cousin, Siyabonga Meyiwa, hold a media briefing and announce that they have approached Afrikaans lobby group AfriForum for help in solving Senzo’s case.
November 6, 2019: AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel briefs the media with regard to Meyiwa’s murder investigation. He announces that they had appointed head of its private prosecution unit, Gerrie Nel, as the family’s advocate in the investigation into Meyiwa’s murder.
2020
October 20: A gun which has been positively linked to the killing of Meyiwa is found at the Cleveland police station. It had also been used in the murder of a taxi boss three months after the soccer star died.
According to News24, the suspect was reportedly convicted of the taxi boss murder and sentenced to 30 years.
October 26: Six years later, Police Minister Bheki Cele announces that five suspects had been arrested in connection with the murder of Meyiwa.
Cele said the arrests were made in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The men subsequently appear at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court, where the matter is postponed to November 27.
November 27: Muzikawulahlelwa Sibiya, Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi, Mthobisi Mncube, Mthokosizi Maphisa and Sifisokuhle Ntuli appear at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court and their matter is postponed to March 5, 2021.
October 27, A document erroneously sent to the media by the NPA puts singer Kelly Khumalo at the front and centre of the Meyiwa murder case.
The document was released to the media along with the charge sheet for the case of the five suspects who were arrested, linked with the murder of the former Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana player.
It shows Colonel Bongani Gininda of the SAPS’s cold case unit instructing the investigating officer to outline at least 10 tasks linked with the Meyiwa murder investigation, of which two of the items on the document concern the musician.
Gininda requests statements or affidavits relating to how the police obtained confessions from two people. Gininda also requests cellphone communication between the accused before, during and after the commission of the crime, cell tower locations and the automatic vehicle locations of a VW Polo believed to have been used as an escape car during the Meyiwa murder in Vosloorus.
Pertaining to Khumalo, the document requests for the singer’s cellphone records.
The document also calls on more information about a particular loan that may have been taken to fund the murder of the goalkeeper.
The NPA at the time said the document had been released to the media “by mistake”.
2021
March 5: The men appear at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court, where their matter is transferred to the High Court.
Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi dropped his lawyer for allegedly forcing him to confess to a crime he says he didn’t commit.
From there, the men make several appearances in court until the trial date is set for April 11, 2022
2022
March 17: The four men, Muzikawukhulelwa Sthemba Sibiya, 34, Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi, 30, Mthobisi Prince Ncube, 36, and Mthokoziseni Ziphozonke Maphisa, 35, appear at the Pretoria High Court where they inform the judge that they had dropped their lawyer and appointed advocate Malesela Teffo before the trial.
Teffo also tells the court that he wants the case to be re-opened and all the people who were present on the night Senzo was murdered to be arrested and charged with perjury.
The fifth accused, Sifisokuhle Nkani Ntuli, was not in court.
April 7: Muzikawukhulelwa Sthemba Sibiya, 34, is sentenced to 12 years in prison for attempted murder in another case just days before the Meyiwa trial resumes.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said: “This is after he was convicted for the attempted murder of Ntombenhle Ndaba and Mfanelo Mbatha whom he attacked in a hail of bullets, but miraculously they survived.
“He was also accused of shooting his girlfriend in December 2014 after she threatened to blow the whistle on him for his alleged involvement in the murder of Senzo Meyiwa, of which he had apparently confided in the girlfriend.”
April 11: The trial gets off to a shaky start after Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela rolled the matter over to Tuesday, to allow advocate Zandile Mshololo, representing Sifisokuhle Nkani Ntuli, to consult her client.
Mshololo had complained that she had not had enough time to consult her client.
As the tumultuous trial took off, punctuated with heated exchanges between Judge Maumela and Teffo, the lawyer representing four of the five men accused of killing Meyiwa shocked many when he withdrew from the case, saying he was being harassed by the State and the judge.
The adjournment came after Teffo said he wanted to challenge the jurisdiction of the court saying the matter should be heard at the Johannesburg High Court and not at the Pretoria High Court.
However, Teffo later abandoned his application to challenge the jurisdiction. Instead, Teffo said he would make presentations to the National Director of Public Prosecution (NDPP) for the charges against his clients to be dropped.
Last month, Teffo’s attempts to “bulldoze” his way back into the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial were objected to by all legal counsels in the matter.
Testifying before the court, Meyiwa’s friend Tumelo Madlala in September hinted that the person who shot the football star was in the courtroom, among the five arrested men.
Madlala pointed out Bongani Ntanzi as one of the intruders who was in the house when Meyiwa was shot.
Last month, Maumela postponed the trial of the five men to November 14. From the resumption date, the case is set to run until December 2.
This month, in another turn of events, Ntanzi has appeared before a different judge, Aubrey Ledwaba, seeking release on bail.
Judgment in the bail application has been reserved.
IOL