Durban - A man testified in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday that when he heard three gunshots on the evening doctor Bhavish Sewram was murdered, he looked in the direction they came from and saw a man in the middle of the road walking in his direction.
Keith Naidoo said that the man, wearing a striped hooded top, then walked casually towards a footpath and once he reached it, started to run.
He was shown photographs of the scene and pointed out the path.
Naidoo was testifying in the trial of Mfaniseni Nxumalo, 34, and former policeman Brian Treasurer, 53, who are alleged to have murdered Sewram outside his Chota Motala Road surgery in May 2013.
The gunman, Sabelo Dlamini, had pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in jail.
The State alleges that Treasurer drove Nxumalo and Dlamini to the Fusion Lounge, on the same road as the doctor’s surgery.
The passengers got out and walked along a footpath to get to the doctor’s surgery. They shot him as he was getting into his bakkie.
Naidoo told the court that when he heard the gunshots, he initially thought they were fireworks.
At the time, he was chatting to a relative, facing away from the doctor’s surgery. He said he remembered seeing the man in the road, because there were no other people on the road.
Naidoo said he noticed car lights at the end of the footpath, but did not see the man get into the vehicle.
He also did not see the man’s face.
He then saw people rushing to Sewram’s Chevrolet bakkie, which was parked outside the surgery and ran towards it.
It was alleged that Treasurer had been hired by businessman Rajiv Soni to kill the doctor because he’d had an affair with Soni’s wife.
Soni’s trial was separated and is pending before a different judge.
The Mercury