Pietermaritzburg - The doctor who was allegedly murdered on the instruction of his jealous former best friend knew three months before his death that a plot was being hatched to kill him.
This is one of the shocking details in the indictment served on the alleged killers of Doctor Bhavish Sewram in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
The details emerged on Friday, the same day Sewram’s widow, Yuvadia, celebrated her 33rd birthday.
Sewram was shot dead outside his surgery in Greytown Road in June.
His former best friend, local businessman Rajive Soni, 37, ex-policeman Brian Treasurer, 53, alleged trigger man Sabelo Dlamini and alleged “middleman” Mfaniseni Nxumalo will go on trial for Sewram’s murder on March 3.
Soni faces five additional charges of defeating or obstructing the course of justice, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit murder.
Sewram’s murder has rocked the Pietermaritzburg community.
The state alleges that when Soni discovered his wife, Kerusha, was having an affair with Sewram last year, he embarked on a campaign to drive him out of town. When that failed, he decided to have Sewram killed.
Soni’s “quest for vengeance” allegedly involved concocting charges of sexual assault against Sewram on two occasions. It is alleged that the businessman approached two of Sewram’s young women patients to lay charges of sexual assault against the doctor.
It is alleged that after these schemes failed, he allegedly hired two people to shoot Sewram with a high-powered paintball gun using solid projectiles instead of ordinary paintballs
.
On October, 24, last year, Sewram was shot several times with the paintball gun as he left his surgery, causing multiple abrasions and bruises of his right forearm and his scalp.
When the charges of sexual assault were withdrawn in court, and Soni realised all his plans had been thwarted, he allegedly turned to murder.
One of the charges against Soni alleges that in early February, Soni offered one Mlungisi Sithebe R100 000 to kill Sewram. Sithebe allegedly pretended to agree to the plan, but instead alerted Sewram to Soni’s plot.
The state alleges that Soni later approached Treasurer, with the same offer to kill Sewram.
Treasurer allegedly accepted and arranged for Nxumalo and Dlamini to carry out Sewram’s murder in return for money
.
Daily News