Durban — The first witness in the murder trial against a Phoenix man alleged to have kidnapped, killed, and torched his wife inside her car testified on camera in the Durban High Court on Wednesday.
Before the witness was called onto the stand, State advocate Thabani Buthelezi applied to have the courtroom cleared except for staff, stating that the witness feared for his life.
Sfiso Professor Ndlovu is on trial for the murder of his estranged wife, Khulukazi Ndlovu, in April 2020.
Khulukazi, who had been an eThekwini Municipality employee, had been missing for a few days when her car was found burnt and abandoned in a cemetery in Molweni.
Human remains were found inside the wreck, but the identity of the body was only confirmed six months later through DNA.
Her family had been unable to bury her because of the delay in confirming the identity of the burnt body.
Ndovu, an inspector at Tansnat bus service, was arrested nearly six months after the charred body of Khulukazi was found.
The couple, who did not have any children, lived in Phoenix.
She had moved out of their Phoenix home and was renting accommodation in the area at the time of her disappearance.
In court, Buthelezi in making the application for the witness to testify in camera said the witness had expressed fear of testifying in open court due to threats received ever since availing himself to testify.
“There’s been an attempt on his life, from unknown people and he is not sure if these people are here. We ask that the court also make an order for the name of the witness not to be published should the media come to know the identity of the witness.”
Before this, Ndlovu, who is facing three charges – murder, kidnapping and malicious damage to property – pleaded not guilty to all three counts.
The State alleges that he acted with another in furtherance of a common purpose in relation to all three charges.
He did, however, make admissions, not disputing the post-mortem report as well as three statements relating to it and two photo albums attached to the investigation.
In his opening address, Buthelezi told the court that this was a case of femicide and the State was going to prove that the accused is the person who kidnapped the deceased and took her to Ndwedwe and killed her, then took her to Emachobeni and burnt her in the vehicle she owned.
“The State will rely on circumstantial evidence in the form of cellphone records of the accused and accomplice, the deceased car tracker report, eyewitness account of the condition of the deceased’s vehicle the morning after, he used fuel from that vehicle to burn the deceased. The State will argue that this is a phenomenon of a jealous ex-husband from which the deceased had tried to run away from by moving out of the marital home and when that proved futile she applied for a protection order but that didn’t help, she ended up being kidnapped and killed. The State will be calling about 12 witnesses.”
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