Cape Town - A Zimbabwean man accused of cutting out and eating a man's heart is a danger to society and a flight risk, the Athlone Magistrate's Court in Cape Town heard on Thursday.
“I do not want to say this has never happened in South Africa before but something like this is very rare,” investigating officer Sergeant Mpumelelo Yengwa said during 35-year-old Andrew Chimboza's bail application.
“It's the first time in the nine years I've been in the police that I have heard of a person killing someone else, taking out their heart and eating it.
“From the community's side, what he has done is unacceptable to them... there would be nothing keeping him here because he has no property and no children.”
Yengwa said he opposed bail because residents might kill Chimboza, he could kill himself, or endanger others.
He believed the State had a strong case against him. He came to Cape Town from Zimbabwe in 2009 and ran a window-tinting business.
“All the evidence points towards the accused because it was only him and the deceased in the house. The accused claims he was being attacked but there is nothing which shows he was being attacked.”
On Wednesday, Chimboza testified that he stabbed 62-year-old Mbuyiselo Manona to death in self-defence at the home of a female client on June 10.
He said Manona had been belligerent for no reason and attacked him without warning when his client had left to buy alcohol.
He rebutted the State's claim that he had eaten Manona's heart and said that the blood on his face had been from a gash to the head and Manona's spurting wounds.
Yengwa earlier told the court the post mortem doctor said Manona had been alive when his heart was cut out and that it had been cut into small pieces.
“You confirm you were at the post mortem and that what we have in court is the preliminary findings because we don't have the post mortem report?” Chimboza's lawyer Tracey Dowman asked.
Yengwa confirmed it was only preliminary and that two or three months were needed for the report and DNA analysis results.
However, he denied the findings were mere speculation.
Dowman said Chimboza was not a flight risk because he had been honest about his shack address in Langa, and the investigating officer had his passport.
Commenting on the two-and-a-half page petition from Gugulethu and Langa residents, Dowman said there were a maximum of 100 names and these could not represent all interests.
She believed he was not a threat to any area he visited.
Magistrate Elizabeth Ellis postponed closing arguments in the bail application to Monday.
A well-spoken Chimboza, dressed in black tracksuit pants and a heavy khaki coat, thanked Ellis and was escorted to the holding cells by a police officer.
Sapa