A judicial inquiry found on Wednesday that murdered senior Free State official Noby Ngombane’s wife, Nokwanda, and family were not involved in his murder in 2005.
Regional magistrate Dawn Soomaroo made her findings public after a judicial investigation, which lasted about a month, in Bloemfontein.
Nokwanda, her brother and sister, Bongani and Thandiswa, and two cousins, Vuyokazi Mlambo and Sephumle Booi, were arrested soon after and faced charges of murder and defeating the ends of justice separately and jointly.
”Nokwanda, Bongani, Thandiswa, Vuyokazi and Sephumle were not directly or indirectly involved with the murder of Noby,” Soomaroo said.
Ngombane, a senior official in Premier Beatrice Marshoff’s office and adviser to two former premiers, was shot at his Hillsboro home in Bloemfontein on March 22 2005. He died later the same night in hospital.
They were all at the house, watching a DVD, on the night of the murder.
All charges against them were withdrawn in the Bloemfontein High Court in September 2006.
The inquiry found that Ngombane was shot in the chest and stomach on the night of the incident but that the murder was committed by an unknown person. — Sapa