The popular musician Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye told a raging crowd that he was “not afraid of anyone” shortly after the car accident which claimed the lives of four pupils and injured two others, the Protea Magistrate’s Court heard on Friday.
Maarohanye and his co-accused Themba Tshabalala were allegedly drag racing in their Mini Coopers when the cars collided, went out of control and crashed into the boys who had been walking from school.
“Two were laying in a ‘T’ shape, another was having seizures and another one lay with his eyes opened wide, his face covered with soil,” Selina Dasheka, the state’s fourth witness told the court.
The Gospel-hip hop singer, she said, he did not spare a moment to look at the pupils’ condition and left the scene.
“A group of people fetched him while he was leaving the scene and told him to wait for the police and face what he had done,” Dasheka said in a detailed recollection of the events of the afternoon of March 8.
Medical attention
The accident claimed the lives of Andile Mtombeni, 19, Phomelelo Masemelo, 16, Mlungisi Cwayi, and Prince Mahube, both aged 17.
Fumani Mushanana, 17, and Frank Mlabo, 18, suffered serious injuries, including brain damage.
Maarohanye and Tshabalala were forced out of an ambulance to make way for seriously injured pupils shortly after the crash, the Protea Magistrate’s Court heard.
“They could walk on their own and the children were lying on the floor,” Dasheka testified.
Dasheka said she was part of a group of angry residents at the scene who removed the two men from the ambulance and allowed the injured children to be taken to hospital.
However, during cross-examination Maarohanye’s lawyer Ike Motloung accused Dasheka, who is an interpreter in the same police station where the investigating officer works, of “cooking up stories”.
“I put it to you that the good Captain Segape [investigating officer] did not have any witnesses, he just found you in the office next door,” he said.
Correct side of the road
He added that Maarohanye would deny saying he was not afraid of anyone.
He would also deny that his car had been driving on the wrong lane and that it crashed into Tshabalala’s blue Mini Cooper when he saw an oncoming minibus taxi.
Using a photo published in the Star newspaper just days after the accident, which depicts Maarohanye’s charcoal Mini Cooper driving in the left lane, Motloung told Dasheka that his client had been driving in the correct lane.
“The background [of the photograph] clearly shows that it was taken on another part of the road.
“When I saw the two cars, the grey one was driving on the right-hand lane, trying to overtake the blue one,” Dasheka said.
According to her when a white minibus taxi approached the two cars, Maarohanye’s car then swerved towards Tshabalala’s car.
The blue Mini mounted the a pavement before overturning.
Neighbour was ‘unrecognisable’
Dasheka had been walking on the road where the accident happened.
“The kids’ [bodies] looked so scary as they were bleeding. I just couldn’t look at them.”
She saw Mlungisi Cwayi among them. “He grew up in front of me, but I didn’t recognise him as I was crying.”
Her neighbour, Mlungisi’s mother came to her to ask for information about the accident.
“Mlungisi’s mother came to my house and asked me what the children who were killed in the accident were wearing,” the court heard.
Dasheka said the mother started crying when she told her that the children were wearing red school jerseys.
On March 9 the mother confirmed Cwayi’s death in the accident at the local police station.
Charges
Maarohanye and Tshabalala face 10 charges including murder and driving under the influence of drugs, following an accident which killed four schoolchildren in Soweto earlier this year.
Both have pleaded not guilty on all charges.
The pair’s trial started on Monday with the state calling three metro police officers who testified that the two had been tested for alcohol and drugs.
Both had tested positive for cocaine and morphine. Tshabalala was found to be over the alcohol limit.
Their trial resumes on February 8, 2011.