Durban - A policeman and a worker who sustained gunshot wounds in a shootout in Inanda three years ago became emotional on Friday as they recalled the event in the Durban High Court.
They were testifying in the trial of infantryman Thembinkosi American Ngcobo who is facing a raft of charges, including murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and kidnapping.
He allegedly left 8 SA Infantry Battalion, Upington, with his R-4 rifle, to murder his former girlfriend and their 2-month-old son.
Ngcobo allegedly drove to Ntuzuma, where it is alleged he shot his girlfriend’s sisters, Nokwanda and Nonzuzo Mbambo. Nokwanda died at the scene and Nonzuzu was injured.
In a separate case, Nonzuzo and her mother Nomusa Mbambo were murdered at their home in Ntuzuma a year later. Ngcobo had already been arrested when these murders took place.
On the day he allegedly shot the two sisters, a neighbour Makomfa Ngcobo, told Judge Shyan Gyanda she still had a bullet lodged in her upper arm.
She said she had been washing dishes at home when she heard a scream from her neighbour’s home.
“I rushed there. On arrival they told me Nokwanda had been shot at her home.”
She and a neighbour, called Thami, who knew the accused, boarded a taxi to report the matter to police but while en route encountered police cars, one of which she and Thami entered.
Makomfa Ngcobo told how the accused had driven passed them in a white VW Polo, wearing a soldier’s uniform. A shootout ensued and he got out of the vehicle and lay on his stomach and fired shots at police. “I have no knowledge of firearms but it was a big firearm,” she added.
She said she understood, based on what Thami had told her, that the car belonged to the accused.
On realising she had been shot in the left arm, she jumped out of the police vehicle and ran into a nearby house for help. She was taken to Mahatma Gandhi Hospital and was kept overnight.
Ntuzuma-based Sergeant Victor Musawenkosi Mhlongo said he was in the first of three vehicles that responded to a radio call about a kidnapping in Richmond Park on January 31, 2017, when the gunman, dressed in SANDF uniform, opened fire after exiting his car.
“He lay down on the ground, his firearm pointing in our direction.
Then shots were fired,” Mhlongo said. “I took out my firearm and started shooting.”
Then he realised he had been injured in the foot. He lost two toes and the function in another and spent 16 days in hospital.
Like the policeman, the gunman in military attire wore a bullet-proof vest.
A second policeman, Sergeant Goodluck Sibusiso Ngwengwe, who had been in a police vehicle behind Mhlongo’s and was one of a trio of vehicles following up on the reported kidnapping, was next to give evidence.
Unlike the other two witnesses, he was able to say he not only heard the shooting, but “could see the firing out of the nozzle as he pointed the firearm in our direction”.
Like Mhlongo, he returned fire with a 9mm service pistol.
“I didn’t take much notice of which side. I was trying to save myself.”
Ngwengwe said his patrol called for back-up, prompting the arrival of a helicopter. The gunman had, meanwhile, disappeared into the surrounding housing, he said.
Earlier, a statement read out by Ngcobo’s attorney said the accused had met Nontokozo Mbambo in 2015 and later learned that he had a sexually transmitted disease. She gave birth to a baby he doubted was his and she admitted having been unfaithful to him. He later decided to travel to Durban on a murder-suicide mission.
Thembinkosi said he drove to Mbambo’s house and found her sister Nonzuzo, who said she did not know where Mbambo was. At midday, he drove back to Mbambo’s home and heard gunshots. He thought it was a robbery before he realised that his windscreen had been shot at.
“I applied my training as a soldier. I put the vehicle in neutral and picked up the service rifle that was on the passenger seat. I managed to jump off the moving car and fled, taking shelter at a nearby shack until later that evening and then went home,” he said.
He handed himself over to police the following month.
The State claims Thembinkosi shot at and injured seven police officers in the incident. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The hearing was adjourned to Monday.