Victim stabbed with nail file
Gruesome details of how a distraught woman was allegedly forced to watch as her boyfriend was stabbed to death, first with a nail file, before his attackers bizarrely broke several bones in his body to roll him up into a ball and dispose of him, have emerged in a Port Elizabeth court.
The murder case was provisionally postponed to Tuesday, when a trial date will be arranged for the young Port Elizabeth woman to testify against the two men.
Andile Mpindyana, 22, and Xhanti Sizani, 25, both of Govan Mbeki township, close to where the victim – Andile Jonathan Mbambani – lived at the time, appeared briefly in the Port Elizabeth Regional Court on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Benedict Wilson asked that the matter be postponed because the men’s Legal Aid attorney had told Wilson she was sick.
Mpindyana and Sizani have already been in custody for more than a year.
A few family members seated at the back of the courtroom gallery tried to talk to them as the court orderly hastily led them away.
The two friends have pleaded not guilty to murder, two counts of kidnapping and pointing a firearm – or what appeared to be a firearm – and have been in custody since their arrests in February 2018.
They opted not to give plea explanations at this stage.
The prosecution alleges that Mpindyana and Sizani, together with a third man who has since died and has not been named in the charge sheet, confronted Mbambani at his Bowler Street, Govan Mbeki home on January 29 2018 about money they insisted he had stolen from them.
Using a gun, or what appeared to be a firearm, the men
They allegedly stabbed him in the neck and groin with a nail file
allegedly held Mbambani and his girlfriend, Vuyokazi Wendy Klaas, against their will in their home for several hours.
After demanding he hand over cash, which they reportedly believed had been buried somewhere, they allegedly stabbed Mbambani in the neck and groin with a nail file.
He was stabbed several more times with a knife, before the men allegedly broke his legs in multiple places.
All the while, a distraught Klaas begged for mercy, to no avail.
Mbambani’s body was then allegedly rolled up into a tight ball, covered with material and placed on a wheelbarrow, ready to be dumped.
The men were arrested just days apart less than a month after the alleged incident.
Further details have not yet emerged in court.
The men were ordered to remain in custody.
Another witness who will testify for the prosecution was also warned on Wednesday to be in court next week.
The state will argue that the men acted in common purpose and that the murder was premeditated, an offence which carries a prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment.