Murdered Marikana worker may have been stabbed to death

New evidence suggests one of the mineworkers who was killed in Marikana on 13 August, 2012, might have been stabbed.

This emerged on Thursday in the North West High Court, where six police officers are on trial facing charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with a lethal clash between police and striking mineworkers that day.

The clash saw five people, including three mineworkers and two policemen, killed.

Among the accused is former North West deputy police commissioner Major-General William Mpembe.

In 2014, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the Marikana massacre and the events leading up to it found the police’s use of tear gas and stun grenades that day had been “unreasonable and unjustifiable” and was the catalyst for the lethal clash. Mpembe is said to have given the instruction to fire.

Also in the dock is retired police Lieutenant-Colonel Salmon Vermaak.

After the mineworkers tried to flee, the state says Vermaak instructed the remaining accused – Constable Nkosana Mguye and warrant officers Katlego Sekgweleya, Masilo Mogale and Khazamola Makhubela – to go after them in pursuit of a rifle they were believed to have stolen and to shoot at them.

Mpembe is facing four counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder. His co-accused, meanwhile, are facing one count of murder in the death of Phumzile Sokanyile, who the state says was shot in the back of the neck.

But attorney Hennie Scholtz – acting for Mguye, Sekgweleya, Mogale and Makhubela – on Thursday read out a statement deposed by a police officer on the scene that day.

“I also observed a stab wound on the left side, next to the neck, and another stab wound on the left cheek and at the back of his head,” the statement read.

Scholtz quizzed Lieutenant-Colonel Moses Mushwana from the SAPS Local Crime Records Centre on the statement.

Mushwana was on the scene that day, taking photographs and bagging evidence. But he has made no mention of having observed any stab wounds on Sokanyile’s body during his now four days on the stand.

“I want to put it to you that this witness observed that the deceased was stabbed,” Scholtz said on Wednesday.

“I don’t know what to comment,” came Mushwana’s reply.

It is not clear at this stage if the police officer who deposed the statement will be testifying in court.

The case continues.

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