On Thursday, April 16 ANC members also made sure they were in court to offer support for Mthembu’s case.
The state has 10 witnesses, which are a mixture of Zulu and Sepedi and the five accused are all Zulu speaking.
On Thursday, three of the defence attorneys were not ready to go to trial.
The case was postponed to June 23 and 25 for armed robbery and attempted murder.
Two of the suspects will also be appearing for possession of an unlicensed firearm.
The five suspects were arrested in their homes in an informal settlement in eMalahleni last year November, their bail was denied and they have remained in police custody since then.
Mthembu was shot in the face while withdrawing money from the ABSA Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) in the Central Business District on Sunday, October 19 at 22:00.
An unknown suspect came behind him, drew a gun and pointed it at Mthembu, forcing him to withdraw all his money from his bank account.
Mthembu then turned around and hit the suspect’s hand which was holding the gun.
A shot was fired and the bullet hit Mthembu in the cheek.
Mthembu rushed to his vehicle, where he found another four suspects waiting for him. They searched him, taking three cell phones, a large sum of money and a parliament tag.
Mthembu then drove himself to Emalahleni Private Hospital where he was hospitalised for 10 days.
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