Just days after allegedly raping three Durban women and robbing a Gauteng couple, a man gave his 16-year-old girlfriend a watch belonging to one of the victims, the Scottburgh High Court heard on Friday.
Silindile Nyathi said her 26-year-old boyfriend, Wonder Mchunu, gave her the watch ”in those days just after we had celebrated the New Year”, along with two cellphones and a gold necklace.
The watch was identified earlier in the week by the first of three Durban women to testify in the trail of Mchunu, Sithembiso Shelembe (23) and Mthokozisi Mbambo (29).
The three men allegedly raped the three Durban women at a beach house in Pennington, south of Scottburgh, on December 29 last year. They are accused of attacking and robbing a Sandton couple later that night.
Mbambo has also been charged with attempted murder. Mbambo was diagnosed as HIV-positive ”as far back as 2000,” according to the indictment. The indictment said that Mbambo raped the women ”in spite of his knowledge” of the virus.
Nyathi, who was present at court with her three-month-old baby, testified that Mchunu had told her he was working.
Under cross-examination by Mchunu’s advocate, Abdul Khan, she said: ”He told me that he had bought them for me.”
The Sandton mother, who cannot be named, testified earlier in the day that Mbambo had removed a gold chain from her before she was tied up.
On Tuesday the watch was identified by one of the rape victims as hers. At the time she said she could confirm that the watch was hers because ”three stones” were missing.
Earlier on Friday, the Sandton mother told the court she was ”haunted” by what could have happened to her three daughters after a man ”fiddled” with her as she was being tied up.
She said: ”My husband and I, we agreed we wouldn’t become victims. But what has haunted me is that my daughters could have been there and they could have been subject of goodness knows what.”
She and her husband, who also testified on Friday, were cleaning up after a dinner party when they were held up in their holiday cottage in Pennington.
The court heard that her 47-year old husband had already helped wash the dishes and lock the security gates. The man remembered that he had not cleared the table on the veranda. When he opened the gate three men accosted him.
When prosecutor Dorian Paver questioned her about the lighting in the house and the fact that the three men’s defence teams said their clients were at home on the night of the crime, the woman said: ”When we were seated on the couch we were within a metre of accused number one (Shelembe). He was beautifully lit up. I could recognise him anywhere.”
Advocate Dean Govender asked the couple in cross-examination about their alcohol intake, which could have impaired their senses.
”With due respect, when you have a gun and a knife pointed at you, one glass of wine consumed two hours earlier will not have any impact on you. I was in full command of my senses,” the woman replied.
As the couple were being tied up ”one of the accused started fiddling with me. He put his finger into my private parts. I pushed him away because I got such a fright.
Luckily for her, at that moment there was a noise and the men ran away.
Her husband testified that police had asked him not to block his phone after the robbery. When he did eventually block his phone on January 8, there were five pages detailing phone calls that he had not made.
The court heard that Shelembe’s girlfriend, Simangele Nyathi (23), had the Sandton husband’s number stored on her phone. She testified that when she called the number, Mchunu would answer.
Nyathi is the older sister of Mchunu’s girlfriend, Silindile Nyathi.
An unemployed woman from the Oshabeni area near Port Shepstone, from where all three men hail, also testified on Friday that she had bought a Nokia 5210 from a woman she knew to be Mbambo’s girlfriend. Earlier in the week the phone was identified as one of those taken from the house where the women were raped. — Sapa