“MY cousin was still gasping when we started slicing his penis and hands off.”
Samson Majoko (35) from Mozambique testified before the Malamulele magistrate’s court last Wednesday after he was caught in possession of human body parts.
Majoko admitted to the court that the human body parts he was found in possession of were those of his cousin.
He said he and his accomplices had ritually murdered his cousin for muti purposes in Xiphuraphureni village, Malamulele.
He told the court that he was arrested by the police while he was waiting for the buyer, who had promised to pay R100 000 in cash for the body parts. He alleged that this promise was made to his uncle, who in turn told him about it.
“We lured our cousin to the nearby river where my ‘colleagues’ hit him with an axe until he lost consciousness,” Majoko described.
The case was remanded to July 31 for a bail application and for further police investigations to be done.
Provincial police spokesperson, Brig Hlangwani Mulaudzi, said Majoko had been found with the body parts in a plastic bag on his lap. He said both the suspect and the victim were illegal immigrants from Mozambique.
Speaking on behalf of Xiphuraphureni residents, Eric Masungwini said anyone involved in such crimes should be arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Cases involving ritual murder with the aim of harvesting body parts are becoming more frequent, and have three things in common: the murders were committed in order to harvest body parts, fees as high as R100 000 were promised for the delivery of the body parts, and the murders were committed by people who were family or had a close relationship with the victims.
In a separate case, a traditional healer, Nelson Baloyi (48) from Tshitavha Sambandou village, and a Tshilidzini Hospital employee, Desmond Nemushungwa (29) from Shayandima were refused bail by the Thohoyandou magistrate’s court last week. Baloyi and Nemushungwa are accused of ritually murdering Nemushungwa’s close relative, Mercy Ndou (33) from Makuya village.
Ndou’s body was found on June 23. Her eyes, private parts, flesh from her buttocks, and left leg had been removed. Acid had been poured over her body. The two suspects will appear before court again on July 16.
In the third case of this kind, Freddy Tshikhudo Nethengwe (38) is accused of having ritually murdered his Zimbabwean girlfriend.
The woman’s arm and private parts had been removed The Indian couple who was also implicated in the case, were acquitted of all charges shortly after their arrests in April last year.
The case against Nethengwe is in the process of being moved to the Thohoyandou high court, and a date has not yet been set.
Mulaudzi said a special task team that was being assisted by the occult unit in Pretoria, was assigned to work on complicated cases involving witchcraft.
He said the special task team was successfully uncovering various cases.
He added that arrests were imminent in a new ritual murder case that occurred in Khubvi village recently.
He could not provide any details, he said, as this could compromise the case at this stage.
Reacting to these latest ritual murders, Mtulaheni Neluvhola, president of the Limpopo Traditional Healers Association, said there was no medicine in human body parts. He said those who were killing people claiming to be traditional healers were lying.
“They are criminals, not healers. The deserve to be sentenced for life in jail.
“Real traditional healers get medicine from trees, not human flesh,” Neluvhola said.
