He believes the arrest will clear his name and allow him to find closure to a nightmare that still hangs around his neck.
To this end, Mbatha has urged the SAPS to put in more effort to find Senzo’s killer or killers.Even though the murder case against Mbatha was dismissed due to lack of sufficient evidence in a Boksburg court three days after his arrest, he still fears for his life each time he hears people discuss the case.
The former local Rastafarian was arrested shortly after the death of football star Senzo Meyiya, who was shot at the home of singer Kelly Khumalo, in Mzamo Acres, in Vosloorus on the night of October 26, 2013.
“The fear and the stigma of having been accused of murdering Senzo Meyiwa still weighs heavily on my mind. Everywhere I go, I have to make sure that I move around areas where I’m known and among people that I’m familiar with. The case may have been kicked out of court, but I’ll never know just how many people with weird minds out there still see me as the ‘suspect’ who shot and killed Senzo,” said the soft-spoken Mbatha, as we sat talking in his steaming hot single room corrugated-sheeting back-yard shack, literally around the corner from the Khumalo home where Senzo was shot and killed.
Mbatha describes the night Senzo Meyiwa was killed as like any another vibrant summer Sunday evening in the close-knit community of Mzamo Acres.
It was lively and vibrant, and the streets were filled with the sounds of all types of music, from kwaito here, rap there, pop here and even jazz and church songs, for the more discerning, as people rounded up the weekend.
Along Kutlwanong, the main street into the suburb, the local Spaza shop was still open and people were still making their last minute purchases. Members of the local Mahon Christian Church, which is diagonally opposite Kelly’s mother’s house, were also loudly singing their late Sunday church choir hymns, their voices overwhelming the bubbly evening.
“I’m sure that is one of the reasons why I never even heard the gunshot that was said to have been fired during the attack that evening. I only got to hear about the shooting and death of Senzo the following morning. I even walked to the scene and I saw lots of vehicles, including police cars parked along the street outside Kelly’s home,” recalls the still visibly traumatised Mbatha. He describes the incident as the “worst traumatic experience” of his life.
However, Mbatha speaks highly of the detectives who were handling the murder investigation against him. He described some of them as “tough-talking” but he says at no stage was he seriously threatened nor assaulted during the three days he spent in police detention.
“I didn’t even appear in court on the morning of the 11th of November, when the case against me was struck off the roll at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court,” recalls Mbatha, with a tinge of excitement sparkling in his eyes and a brief smile flashing across his face.
Recalling the harrowing experience of being picked up by Vosloorus detectives three days after that fateful Sunday night, Mbatha said he still has vivid memories of his shock after what he initially thought was a mere case of mistaken identity that would soon be resolved at the local police station.
The incident suddenly escalated into a frightful, real life-shattering experience that paralysed every joint in his shaken body when detectives informed him he had been identified as the man who had fired the shot that killed Senzo Meyiwa.
Senzo Meyiwa died under mysterious circumstances in what was later described by the police as a “botched” house burglary at the home of Kelly Khumalo’s mother in Mzamo Acres. Guests who were having dinner inside the house at the time of the attack told detectives that one of the attackers had “dreadlocks”.
Three days later, on the morning of Wednesday, October 29 at around 11am, Mbatha says detectives in possession of a photo of his ID stormed into his shack and accused him of being a suspect in Senzo Meyiwa’s death.
When asked as to how a copy of his ID ended up in the hands of police investigating Senzo’s murder case, a puzzled and equally surprised Mbatha had nothing much to say except, “The only logical reason I can think of is that there’s dozen of unemployed youngsters in this area and from time to time we are asked to submit our CVs together with a copy of our ID to the local Youth Forums, for job or training opportunities.”
Mbatha says he was later escorted back to his shack by detectives who dropped him outside his yard and left.
“I’ve never heard or seen them since.” he says.
“All I want now is a report saying they’ve arrested Senzo’s killer or killers, so that I too can finally close this traumatic chapter of my life.”
