Pretoria – Senzo Meyiwa’s best friend Tumelo Madlala has been accused of lying to the court in his submission that two intruders came into the house and fatally shot the footballer.
Advocate Zandile Mshololo, the Counsel for Sifisokuhle Ntuli, the fifth accused in the Meyiwa murder trial, said this in the North Gauteng High Court while cross-examining Madlala.
Mshololo was questioning Madlala over his statement to police that during the armed robbery, Longwe Twala had confronted the intruder who was wielding a pistol and demanding phones from the house occupants.
“For a person who is not armed, to go straight (and attack the intruder) … you said you could not even look at the armed intruder.
“You slightly looked at him because you were scared. Another person stands up and goes straight to the person who is armed, Mr Madlala?” Mshololo questioned Madlala.
“He (the intruder) had a gun. You say Mr Longwe (Twala) ran to that person. That is not possible, Mr Tumelo. It never happened like that. It is unbelievable.”
The witness responded: “Yes, it is unbelievable. I even asked him one day, ‘how did you attack an armed person?’ The questions that you are asking me, I am still asking myself today, that how was that possible?”
Mshololo put it to Madlala that “there was no intruder at any stage in that house”.
“There is no way Longwe could have gone to the person holding a firearm without being shot. It shows there was no intruder who entered the house carrying a gun,” said the defence advocate.
Madlala said Mshololo’s submission was a lie, and he is “100 percent” certain that there were two intruders at the house.
Mshololo asked Madlala to explain why Longwe was not shot if he indeed attacked one of the intruders.
“How come Mr Longwe was not shot when he approached a person with the gun?” the lawyer insisted.
Madlala said Longwe’s act was “impossible” but it happened.
Earlier, Mshololo quizzed Madlala over the money he received from Netflix, for exclusive content including pictures he gave to the production company after Meyiwa’s death.
Mshololo submitted: “Did you inform Mandisa (Meyiwa’s wife) after sharing the pictures you had of the deceased with Netflix? Did you give Mandisa anything, just to look after, just for the sake of the child that belonged to the deceased?”
Madlala responded: “No. She is taking care of her child.”
Mshololo asked again: “But you, after benefiting from the father of the child … did you give any portion to that child of the deceased who was your best friend?”
Madlala said Meyiwa’s family should probably have contributed something towards the child.
“I do not think that I was supposed to do that. I think that is for Senzo’s family, not myself,” he said.
“I did not share the money with anyone. It was my money.”
Mshololo submitted that Madlala was Meyiwa’s best friend, until the time the soccer star was fatally shot.
Madlala disagreed.
Mshololo also asked Madlala if he had given a portion of the money to Senzo’s mother.
Madlala said he did not, and could not have given anything to someone who did not talk to him.
Five men – Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Mthobisi Mncube, Mthokoziseni Maphisa and Sifokuhle Ntuli – are facing charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of an unlicensed firearm as well as possession of ammunition.
All of the five accused have pleaded not guilty.
Meyiwa was killed on October 26, 2014, while in the company of his girlfriend and the mother of his child, Kelly Khumalo, in Vosloorus.
In the house that day were Meyiwa, Kelly Khumalo and her younger sister, Zandile, their mother Ntombi Khumalo, Longwe Twala, Meyiwa’s friends Mthokozisi Thwala and Madlala, Kelly’s then 4-year-old son, Christian, and Thingo, her daughter with Meyiwa.
IOL