By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
In the trial of the alleged mastermind in the murder of Tshegofatso Pule, the state asked the court to reject Ntuthuko Shoba’s version as being not “reasonably possibly true”.
Shoba has been accused of being the mastermind behind Pule’s murder. She was killed when she was eight months pregnant.
The state says it has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the defence says there were flaws in the investigation.
Shoba is accused of plotting the murder of Pule on 4 June 2020. Pule was found hanging from a tree in Durban Deep, Roodepoort. She was pregnant with Shoba’s child.
Last year, Muzikayise Malephane, 32, confessed to the crime, but said he was acting on orders from Shoba, also 32, who had offered him R70,000 to kill Pule because he was married and didn’t want his wife to find out about their relationship.
Shoba was subsequently arrested and charged with murder and defeating the ends of justice himself. His trial eventually kicked off in the Johannesburg High Court last month and saw a total of 13 witnesses, including Malephane and Shoba, take the stand over the course of four weeks.
Shoba’s counsel, advocate Norman Makhubela, in his closing submissions tore into Malephane’s testimony and asked the court to disregard it in its entirety.
In court, Malephane testified he had picked Pule up from Shoba’s house under the pretence that he was an Uber driver and would be taking her home, but then instead shot and killed her. However, in an initial statement to police – in which he now admits he lied – Malephane placed Shoba at the scene of the crime and even alleged he was the one who killed Pule.
Makhubela labelled Malephane a “self-confessed liar”. He also honed in on Malephane’s own admissions that he was a career criminal, who was driven by a love of money.
Makhubela also argued Shoba had led police to incriminating video footage of Malephane picking Pule up and said Malephane was hell-bent on taking Shoba at all costs as a result – pointing to threats he had made to have Shoba gang-raped in prison.
“Not only has Malephane displayed an obsession to deal with the accused because he believed that the accused betrayed him, he has also come across as intensely biased against the accused,” Makhubela argued.
But state advocate Faghre Mohamed highlighted what he described as “oddities” in Shoba’s testimony.
Among these were Shoba’s claims that while he usually arranged lifts to and from his house for Pule, on the night in question she had made these arrangements herself and his “failure to even enquire why the deceased was arranging her own transport” as well as his “failure to see the need to go to her abode to establish her whereabouts in the days after her departure, even though he was near her residence on more than one occasion”.
Judgment is reserved.