Johannesburg - Zina, the wife of well-known DJ Paul Rotherham, lost her job because of the bullet wound she sustained to her hand during an attempted hijacking last year.
This is what the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court heard on Friday after she took the witness stand in the trial of her accused, Skhumbuzo Madonsela.
Still wearing a wrist brace seven months after the shooting, the former flight attendant explained that she had 30 percent disability in her injured hand.
Rotherham spent most of the morning in the witness stand as Madonsela’s attorney, Fofoza Mohlaba, tried to discredit her testimony, claiming it wasn’t his client she saw on the day of the shooting.
His client, he claimed, happened to have taken his child, with his wife, to see a doctor on that day.
“He doesn’t have sunken eyes or a dark complexion… and he doesn’t have a square jaw or big hands,” said Mohlaba, referring to Rotherham’s description of the accused.
“This is a case of mistaken identity, the eyes are different,” Mohlaba added. But Rotherham insisted that it was Madonsela she saw.
“My perception of a face is different to that of other people,” said Rotherham.
“It is highly unlikely that an average Joe will remember a face the first time they met someone, but I will,” Rotherham explained.
This was because of her part-time work as a make-up and portrait artist, she said.
The courtroom was scheduled for fumigation on Friday afternoon, and the trial will resume on March 22 – another unscheduled delay that angered her husband.
The Star