The High Court in Pretoria resumes testimony on Friday morning in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, with accused number three, Mthobisi Mncube, expected to continue giving evidence in a case that now turns in part on how the prosecution has handled competing descriptions of the killer.
Mncube, standing trial alongside four others for the October 2014 murder of the former Bafana Bafana captain, maintains his innocence. His argument is a pointed one: witness accounts of the intruder who shot Meyiwa do not match his own appearance. The claim puts the state’s evidentiary record itself under scrutiny, raising questions about which account the prosecution relies on and whether the descriptions before the court are consistent with what those inside the house reported.
Under cross-examination by State Prosecutor Dr Ronnie Sibanda on Thursday, Mncube told the court that witnesses described the intruder as dark in complexion, with dreadlocks reaching the neck. This, he contends, contradicts the state’s characterization of the killer as light in complexion. Mncube told the court he has always been light in complexion.
He pointed specifically to the evidence of Zandi Khumalo, saying that from the 18th of the month and on subsequent days, she described dreadlocks reaching the neck and stated that the person was dark and even shiny in complexion. “That is where we are having a disagreement,” he said.
The descriptions being advanced, Mncube argued, do not match the accounts of those who were present. “They are not referring to someone with long dreadlocks up to the back, they are not making reference to a person whose light in complexion. That is where I am saying that particular portion now belongs to the police as well as the state. It’s not the evidence of the people that were in the house,” he said.
What changed: the dispute has moved from the witnesses’ statements to the conduct of the institutions presenting them. The disagreement over physical descriptions goes to the heart of how the state constructed its case, and it frames the accountability questions the trial is now examining. Dr Sibanda’s cross-examination represents the prosecution’s effort to test Mncube’s version against the state’s own record, while Mncube’s responses place the burden on prosecutors to reconcile the descriptions attributed to witnesses with the identification theory advanced in court.
The proceedings continue to draw attention as the court weighs whether the identification evidence offered by the state can withstand challenge from the accused. Mncube’s insistence that the description of the gunman belongs to the testimony of those in the house, rather than to the state’s own account, puts the prosecution’s handling of that evidence squarely at issue.
The trial, now in a phase where the accused give evidence under cross-examination, remains a test of the institutional process itself: how the court receives conflicting descriptions, how the prosecution justifies its theory of identification, and how responsibility is assigned on the record. Friday’s session is expected to give the court further opportunity to probe those questions before it determines what weight the disputed descriptions should carry in the broader case concerning the October 2014 killing.
Reference coverage of the trial can be found at https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/mncube-maintains-innocence-as-meyiwa-murder-trial-resumes/
Reporting by Lerato Makola.