Durban - An electrical cord cut from an iron in his home was put around the neck of Nkosi Timmy Langa. His brother-in-law pulled one end of the cord while James Mashudu “Ramaphosa” Mthimkhulu, who is now a State witness, pulled the other end, killing him.
While Mthimkhulu detailed how Nkosi was killed, his wife, Nompumelelo Patricia Goncalves, who is also an accused, kept down her head, which was covered in a black scarf, while Langa’s sister could be heard crying in the gallery at the Durban High Court.
Zodwa Langa, Langa’s older sister, said it was painful to hear how he was killed.
“He was the only brother I had. Hearing the brutality used in killing him is what made me emotional in court because it was the first time that we heard how he was actually killed. It really hurts and we want nothing more than for the culprits to get a fitting sentence.”
Goncalves and her brother, Nkosinathi Steve Zungu, 37, are on trial for the kidnapping and murder of her husband, Langa.
It is alleged that Goncalves had hired her brother, Mthimkhulu, and another man to kidnap and murder Langa because she had allegedly endured physical abuse at his hands.
Mthimkhulu told the court that after being picked up in Durban by Goncalves, she allegedly drove them to Pinetown and dropped them off near her home for them to wait for her signal to enter.
He said once this was received, he, Zungu and another man gained entry to the couple’s home, with the gate having been left unlocked by Goncalves, who had also told the men she would ensure that she and Langa were in her daughter’s room where he would not be able to access the panic button.
Mthimkhulu alleged that Zungu opened the top half of the stable door, which had been left unlocked intentionally, then the bottom.
“I think the deceased heard our footsteps as we entered the house; when he checked, we were already in the passage and he closed the door, we tried to push in … we ended up breaking it open,” he said.
Mthikhulu alleged that Langa then tried to run out of the house, but they grabbed him and bound his hands behind his back with an electric cord of an iron that had been on an ironing board inside the house.
The three men were armed with a knife. Threatening Langa with death, they forced him to give them his pin numbers for his bank cards in the car, then they took him with them in his car. He said that they drove to a place out of Durban unknown to him, where they entered a forest, alighted from the car and walked with Langa further down, where his life would be ended.
“Once we sat him down on the ground, he asked us not to kill him. I told him we were not going to do that, but I knew that decision had already been taken to kill him; it’s something that was going to happen,” he said.
The trial continues on Friday.
Daily News