Former Orlando Pirates goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa’s friend, Mthokozisi Thwala has told the Gauteng Division High Court in Pretoria that the football star might have already died by the time the nurses put him on the stretcher and carried him into the hospital.
Thwala, who is a friend to Meyiwa and his fiancée, Mandisa Mkhize, told the court how he tested Meyiwa’s responsiveness when they arrived at the emergency area of the hospital by holding up his hand and received no response.
He says it was at this time that he also noticed that the former Bafana Bafana captain was no longer gasping when they arrived at the hospital as he had when he was picked up from the crime scene and along the way.
“Before we arrived at the Botshelong Hospital, I remember Senzo was still alive. I remember I held his hand to check and when I let it go, he still held on,” says Thwala.
“But when we arrived at the hospital, I could see that he was not gasping anymore. You could see he was already dead or he was about to die. What I remember is that a nurses or doctors came out and placed him on a stretcher and took him inside,” he adds.
Thwala has become the state’s sixth witness in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial and the second witness who was in the house when Meyiwa was shot after Zandile Khumalo.
While he corroborated Zandile’s testimony of the entrance into the house of two intruders, one short with dreadlocks and one taller wearing a hoodie, the court has heard for the first time that the taller intruder had carried a sharp object that looked like a knife.
Thwala: The second one carried a sharp object that looked like a knife. He was wearing a hoodie. I cannot describe him facially. Suspect number 2.
The first suspect was wearing a hat and he was wearing something like a jersey, jacket, let’s say a jacket. #SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwa
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) August 2, 2023
He has let the court in on the pandemonium that broke in the house after a shot was fired, as everyone ran in different directions.
Thwala: He was gasping when I got him. He was still alive. I pulled up his t-shirt and I noticed a bullet wound here (pointing to the chest area).#SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwa #SenzoMeyiwatrial
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) August 2, 2023
He says he ran out immediately after the shot went off and was chased after by the alleged taller intruder carrying what looked like a knife before he jumped into the neighbour’s yard, while the alleged assailant ran down the street.
It is the testimony of Nthabiseng Mokete , another neighbour who was sitting in a car with her friend Yolanda Motha when the shots went off, that immediately after the first short a man of average height ran past their car. And immediately after the second shot sounded, she says, two men, one wearing a hoodie and one with dreadlocks, ran past.
However, according to Thwala, the man with the hoodie chased after him and ran down the street and only while he was in the neighbour’s yard, he was told the gunman had also run out of the house.
Thwala: Suspect number 2 went down the road.
I remember the neighbours asking me who I was. I remember telling them who I was and how I’d got there and who I knew as well. . I remember saying that we were being robbed.#SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwa #SenzoMeyiwatrial
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) August 2, 2023
According to Zandile, the gunman spent a bit of time in the house after the three shots went off, when he walked to the sitting room where he elbowed her mother, Gladness Khumalo before he took Kelly’s phone and left the house.
Thwala says while they were in the waiting area of the hospital, a doctor requested to speak to an elder. He was it was Kelly’s mother who went, but he followed and heard the doctor break the news that the former football star was no more.
The trial continues.
