Senzo Meyiwa. (Getty Images)
The state’s second witness in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, Khaya Ngcatshe, said on Wednesday that he and other neighbours had found the football player lying unattended on the kitchen floor, after he was shot in the family home of his girlfriend, Kelly Khumalo.
Ngcatshe, who took the stand on Tuesday after Khumalo’s sister Zandile, said he had heard a commotion and a banging noise at the Khumalo house.
“When I was about to leave the house to go to the neighbour’s house, someone jumped into our yard and told us that there is a problem at the Khumalos,” he said on Wednesday under cross-examination by defence advocate Zandile Mshololo.
Ngcatshe said he and other neighbours went on the hunt for the intruders, including searching the park down the road, before making their way back to the Khumalo house.
“On arrival, we made our way in through the kitchen door and found Meyiwa lying alone on the kitchen floor. We tried to hold him in a sitting position before we carried him to the car,” he told the court.
Mshololo asked Ngcatshe about the state in which the neighbours found Meyiwa and he replied that the Bafana Bafana captain was unconscious and non-responsive.
The five people on trial — Mthokozisi Maphisa, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Ntanzi, Mthobisi Ncube and Fisokuhle Ntuli — have pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and the illegal possession of ammunition.
The trial started afresh last week with a new judge, Ratha Mokgoatlheng, replacing Tshifhiwa Maumela who was suspended for misconduct for failing to deliver judgments timeously.