Durban — As the State took a witness through the photo album of the scene in the murder case of Philisiwe Judith Mvubu in the Durban High Court relatives in the gallery cried and consoled each other.
Senior State Advocate Krishen Shah was questioning the officer who responded to the scene in the Mkhazini area, KwaMakhutha, where Philisiwe had been killed, allegedly by her husband. The woman had a stab wound to the abdomen, one on the left side of her neck and a gaping open wound on the front of her neck.
Shah handed in the photo album as an exhibit on Monday while Sergeant Qhamukile Khumalo was on the stand.
Sibusiso Bongekhaya Mvubu stands accused of his wife’s murder. The State alleges the murder was premeditated.
Khumalo said that prior to the murder on July 1 last year, she and her colleagues had accompanied Philisiwe to her home to hand over a protection order to her husband because he allegedly wanted to pour boiling water on her.
This was ten days before she was found by neighbours in her house facedown in a pool of blood covered in a blanket.
Khumalo testified that Mvubu had refused to sign the document and stormed out of the house.
Mvubu on Monday pleaded not guilty to the alleged murder, claiming it was self-defence. If he “had not taken the knife from her she would’ve killed me, my life was in danger”, he said.
Mvubu’s defence counsel, Zeera Fareed, reading a sworn statement by her client detailing his version of events, said prior to the alleged stabbing the couple had been arguing over the protection order his wife had against him. Mvubu alleges that while they were arguing his wife slapped him, took his cellphone and threw it on the floor.
“She then took a knife and aimed it at my chest, I blocked it with my left hand. I took the knife and stabbed her on the left side of her neck,” said Mvubu.
He alleges that his wife was accidentally stabbed on the left side of her stomach when she fell after the neck wound had been inflicted.
Nompumelelo Mosia, a neighbour of the Mvubus and also Philisiwe’s friend, broke down while on the stand.
She had been asked to look at a picture of Philisiwe’s body which she did, but looked away instantly and then could no longer compose herself.
Mosia cried even outside court, asking why she had to be shown those pictures, while she was being comforted by Philisiwe’s family.
On the stand, she testified that Philisiwe had been sleeping at her house on the day of her murder. Philisiwe had been doing so since June 14 until the day she died, she said.
Mosia said that morning Mvubu had sent a child to call Philisiwe to come to him at their home. “She left. That was the last time I saw her alive.”
Evidence by Mosia was that Mvubu had left the dead woman in the house with the door locked and the same child he had sent to call Philisiwe had come back saying there was blood on the dining room door. She said the community got the child through a small bedroom window to open the door from the inside. Once inside, they found her neighbour dead.
Daily News
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