Durban - The man accused of raping and killing
his pregnant girlfriend, and then dumping her body at the Lindelani cemetery,
broke down in court on Thursday, unable to
look at the pictures of her rape injuries.
Simiso Chonco had looked away and blocked his face with one hand, as senior State advocate Noxolo Dube grilled him, in the Durban High Court, about the inconsistencies between his evidence in chief and in the guilty plea statement he made at the start of trial.
He had to be given a few minutes to compose himself, after looking at the photographs.
His response to whether he had caused the injuries was that he did not believe that a penis would cause such gruesome injuries to a woman’s private parts.
Chonco was arrested a day after the naked body of his girlfriend, Sinethemba Ngubo, 26, was found at the cemetery, in December 2018, with various neck and face injuries.The DNA results had also linked him to Ngubo’s rape.
Chonco, in his evidence yesterday, backtracked from what he had said in his guilty plea statement to the charge of murder, denying everything.
He blamed his previous Legal Aid attorney, saying he probably misunderstood him, despite having signed the statement and having confirmed its contents, when it was submitted to the court.
In the statement, he had admitted to killing her and approaching people to have the tracker on her car removed so that he could sell it.
He also admitted to driving her car around, trying to hide the evidence that he had killed her. He said he was assisted by the mother of his child and girlfriend, Nondumiso Nzama, and her friend Xoliswa Ndlovu.
In the guilty plea, he had denied having sex or raping Ngubo.
In the middle of the trial, DNA results, which had been outstanding, became available, linking him to the rape charge.
This led to him firing his lawyer.
His new version yesterday was that he did have sex with Ngubo on the day of the murder and claimed they were still a couple.
He said, that day, they had an argument when Ngubo apparently told him that their unborn baby was not his.
“This angered me and I ended the relationship. I went to the mother of my eldest child and asked to resume our relationship. I took her and our baby home,” he said.
He said, that evening, Ngubo arrived at his home and knocked, and when no one opened the door for her, she broke windows.
He said he had a quarrel with her outside, which ended with them leaving on foot.
“We fought, pulled and I strangled her. I realised that she was not moving, I pumped her chest, I thought she had fainted. I went to fetch her car outside my home and loaded her into the back seat,” he said. He said he dumped her body at the cemetery
The trial continues.