Mbombela murder victim’s family waits a third Christmas for justice

Tebogo Mabunda’s family will spend their third Christmas waiting for the day of reckoning.
She was shot and killed by her convicted ex-cop husband, Mugiyo Ulrich Mabunda, outside their house in Stonehenge in May 2020.

Mugiyo was convicted in June 2022 for the premeditated murder of his wife, and his most recent appearance in Mpumalanga Division of the High Court was on Monday December 5.

Judge Cassim Moosa said the court wanted to pass judgment on Friday, however, they had to postpone it to February 17. The court wants both the defence and state to be present on the day.

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Kgopotso Matuwe, Tebogo’s sister, said the family had hoped that the sentencing would have been done on Monday, because the matter had been postponed on several occasions.

“They are postponing again because someone is going on holiday. As a family we had hoped that we can put the court trips behind us in 2022, because they are not only costly, but they are delaying us from facing what awaits us. We have to start mourning and face the fact that my sister is no more. We cannot move on while we constantly have to be going to court. We would rather have this sentencing done with and deal with this pain of loss, because the court cases are a distraction.”

Matuwe said they did not understand why the matter would only be in court in February, as the court starts operating again in January.

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“We do not understand why they are dragging out this case. For now we are praying that the next court appearance in February will be the last.”

The Mpumalanga spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority, Monica Nyuswa, said, “During the proceedings, the state argued in its final argument that the court must not deviate from the minimum sentence of life imprisonment, as the accused is convicted of a gender-based violence matter.”