ZENZELE KUHLASE & JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelsprit | Tuesday 6.45pm.
THE wife battery and assault case against jailed Mpumalanga politician Luckson Mathebula was postponed for the fifth time on Tuesday.
The case will now be heard on Friday, on the same day that Mathebula is scheduled to appear in court for ninth time in connection with the murder of his estranged wife, Rose Aletta Mnisi.
Mnisi brought the assault charges against Mathebula in May last year after he allegedly beat her on the head and back with a large wooden curio during a drunken argument.
Mathebula was Mpumalanga’s MEC for safety and security at the time. Mnisi spent two weeks in hospital after the alleged attack and appealed for police protection from the Northern Province government after accusing Mathebula of abusing his political power to cover up the incident.
She was assassinated by a single gunshot to the head just days before the case was finally set to be heard in June this year.
Mathebula and his young girlfriend, Pretty Gama, were arrested in a White River restaurant shortly afterwards and charged with murder and conspiracy to murder.
Mathebula did not appear in court for the postponement of the assault hearing on Tuesday and was remanded in police custody until the consolidated case is heard on September 10.
His attorney, Francis Legodi, said on Tuesday that Mathebula was also still waiting to hear whether the Attorney General would proceed with the assault hearing at all because the complainant and only witness to the alleged incident was dead. –African Eye News Service