Hillary Gardee murder-accused Sipho Mkhatshwa denied bail

Sipho Mkhatshwa, one of the three men accused of killing Hillary Gardee, daughter of former EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee, has been denied bail.

The EFF said in a statement that although this was a small victory in the fight against Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF), the party was disturbed that many other perpetrators of similar crimes were granted bail for as little as R500.  

“We are sober to the fact that a dismally low percentage of male GBVF perpetrators are successfully prosecuted yet all women across South Africa are forced into survival mode daily because their bodies have been turned into war zones and their humanity grossly violated.”

Gardee went missing on 29 April while shopping with her three-year-old daughter who was later that day dropped off at Umnenke Street at KaMagugu, where they resided. Her body was then found by timber plantation workers on 3 May with stab wounds, boot prints and a gunshot wound about 60km outside Mbombela towards Sabie.

Mkhatshwa and his co-accused, Philemon Lukhele and Albert Gama, will answer to charges of abduction, rape and murder.

Lukhele and Gama are expected to start their bail application on 8 August in the same court while all three will appear together on 22 August for the drafting of an indictment.

Meanwhile, Godrich has accused Swaziland’s monarch King Mswati III of killing his daughter. He shared a tweet of his accusations on Monday.

He said on 12 April 2022, four borders were closed and each for more than 6 hours.

“There was no income for Eswatini Government. King Mswati killed Hillary. The King was angry and he unleashed his foreign intelligence service with a robbery decoy and killed Hillary Gardee.”

Eswatini government spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo denied Godrich’s allegations and called on him to refrain from creating conspiracy theories surrounding the death of his daughter.

Speaking to Sakina Kamwendo on SAFM on Tuesday, Nxumalo said: “I don’t know why Mr Gardee regards himself so highly politically. These claims have got absolutely no truth in them and our government cannot dignify it by giving it comment.”