Bongani Ntanzi, one of the accused in the trial of the five men in the murder of soccer star Senzo Meyiwa, is expected to apply for bail in the High Court in Pretoria on Thursday.
Meyiwa was shot and killed while visiting the home of his then-girlfriend, Kelly Khumalo’s mother.
Last month, without saying whether Ntanzi was the man who pulled the trigger, Madlala says the 32-year-old from Freedom Park in Phokeng, Rustenburg, was the man whose hand Meyiwa grabbed as he pressed him against the wall in the kitchen.
“And a person you have seen before, if you meet this person again, it won’t be difficult to recognise that person. And I won’t tell lies about a person. Even that person knows,” says Madlala.
Madlala told the court that he was in the sitting room when a man who was short in height, had short dreadlocks, had a scotch hat on and had worn a brown or caramel jacket, barged into the house carrying a gun and demanded cellphones and money.
According to Madlala, Longwe Twala, Zandi Khumalo’s boyfriend at the time, rose up and pushed the man on his way out, while Kelly Khumalo ran into one of the bedrooms.
He says there was then a second man who was tall and slender, who was then attacked by Meyiwa, pressing the man against the wall while Kelly, Zandi, and Gladness Khumalo, the owner of the house and Kelly’s mother, assaulted the other assailant with crutches.
Madlala says he stood up and punched the intruder who was held against the wall by Meyiwa before a shot went off. He says it was at this time that he ran into one of the bedrooms and found Meyiwa lying on the floor with a bullet wound on his chest.
VIDEO: Senzo Meyiwa Murder trial: 13 September 2022:
Intruder
Madlala described how Meyiwa pushed an intruder against the wall before he was shot
At the sound of the deafening gunshot, Madlala says he ran to safety into one of the bedrooms but could not go out through the window because the window had burglar bars.
He says when he came out of the bedroom all he could hear were voices calling out Meyiwa’s name, while he lay on his left side between a couch and TV stand in the sitting room.
Pointing at a picture on a screen in court, voice audibly shaky, Madlala told the court, “He was lying there. The way he was lying down, I don’t know whether he was hiding,” showing the court how Meyiwa lay on his left side between the couch and the TV stand.
Madlala reiterated the state’s case that two intruders stormed into the house and demanded cellphones and money.
He says moments before the intruders arrived, he had stood outside and chatted with Meyiwa who had told him of his plans to travel to Durban and buy things for his family and book himself and Kelly Khumalo into a hotel.
Constantly exchanging deep stares with accused 1 and 2, Madlala said he walked back inside the house and things started happening.
“Then someone walked in. He had a firearm and had dreadlocks and wore a jacket and I am not sure whether it was caramel or brown. We just saw something standing there, (pointing to a point on the sketch.) He had a scotch hat on,” he says.
Describing the first intruder, Madlala says, “The person was short and had big eyes. That’s all I can remember. He didn’t say a lot. He asked for phones and money. He spoke in Zulu.”
Additional reporting by Sipho Kekana.
