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| 'I landed on one of the motionless bodies' |
| November 13 2009 at 12:47PM |
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By Irene Kuppan
Jacobs has also been charged with attempted murder for allegedly hitting Madondo with a stick or knobkierie and forcing him off the fifth floor of the building with the intention to kill him. Continues Below ↓ He has also been charged with damaging property - for allegedly breaking doors and windows at the flat. At the time of the incident it was reported that a mob had entered Ventura Africa and forced people to jump from the building. Zimbabwean refugee Victor Zowa, 24, and Tanzanian national Said Omari, 22, died.
In a statement read by Mike Mthembu, the advocate representing all the accused, Khoza, Ballantyne and Mngonyama said they were at home when the crimes were committed. Jacobs said that he was asleep on the roadside when a group of people tried to attack him. However, when they realised he spoke Zulu they left him alone. Madondo, the state's first witness, told the court he was about to go to bed on the night of January 4 when he heard noises. "When I peeped through the window I saw a group of men and women who were singing and chanting slogans. They were saying: 'foreigners, we are tired of foreigners. They must go back to their land.' They were carrying knobkieries, knives and sticks." He said the group entered the building and the leader of the group, a short man with long hair whom Madondo identified as Khoza, was saying: "We are tired of kwerekweres. We want to teach them a lesson." Madondo told the court he heard windows being smashed and doors being kicked open. He recalled seeing Khoza, who he referred to on a number of occasions as the general, and an elderly woman, when he left his room. Khoza screamed: "Here is another one" and the elderly woman said: "Hit him", Madondo said. Punched He said Jacobs, carrying a knobkierie, asked him where he came from and Madondo responded that he was from Zimbabwe and was here to look for work. Madondo said Jacobs hit him with the knobkierie and two other men punched him in the stomach and pulled at his genitals. He told the court that Khoza then instructed the men to "throw this thing outside" and the men pushed him through the window, head first. "When they were pushing me I knew I was going to die... I could see motionless bodies lying on the pavement. I grabbed the pipe next to the window and tried to roll down the pipe." Madondo said Jacobs then hit the pipe with the knobkierie and the pipe broke. "I fell and landed on top of one of the motionless bodies." He said he was bleeding profusely and had crawled to a storeroom in the building, where he remembers being for about 25 minutes. "After that the only thing I remember is waking up at the hospital." He spent more than a month in hospital and was treated for back injuries, a broken leg and a fractured spine. Madondo told the court that since the incident he had received a number of threats and people had threatened to kill him if he took the matter further. He is now in a witness protection programme. During cross-examination, Mthembu pointed out that some of the evidence Madondo gave in court yesterday was not mentioned in his statements to police. Madondo responded that he told police everything and it was not his fault if they had not recorded it. Mthembu said all four accused would deny they were part of the group that entered the building, to which Madondo replied: "It is all lies." The case was adjourned to February for further evidence.
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