VANESSA BURGER
On Thursday the “Glebelands Eight” – Bhekukwazi Mdweshu, a former SAPS detective, his cousin Ncomekile Ntshangase, a former soldier, friend Eugene “Wonderboy” Hlophe, and hit men Khayelihle Mbuthuma, Vukani Mcobothi, Mbuyiselwa Mkhize, Mondli Mthethwa and Bongani Mbhele, a hostel hit squad led by the former policeman – were sentenced in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
The eight had been charged with 22 crimes including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and firearms–related offences that took place between 2014 and 2016. All had also been charged under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act with racketeering, participating or being associated with – or in Mdweshu’s case, managing – a criminal enterprise from which they derived some form of benefit. All were acquitted of racketeering.
Mdweshu was also charged with extortion for forcing residents to make payments to which he was not lawfully entitled.
During the marathon trial, witnesses told the court how Mdweshu had extorted money from residents that was used to purchase firearms, particularly assault rifles used in the 2014 attempted murder of Bongani Mthembu, William Mthembu, Mandlakayise Dyanthi and Lucas Mbekelwa.
Mdweshu was acquitted of extortion but, together with Mcobothi, was convicted of conspiring to kill the four for, which they were sentenced to 10 years each.
Ntshangase – a former SANDF soldier – would train the hit men in the use and care of these firearms, the court was told.
One of the guns, an R4 or R5, was apparently supplied by a fellow cop while the other, an AK-47, likely came from an old arms cache near Msinga, a political violence hot spot during the 80s and 90s.
Despite Police Minister Bheki Cele’s recent pronouncements that police would “intensify operations to detect and remove illegal firearms,” there has been no further investigation into the sources of these firearms or the allegations that Durban Central police members were running guns. In fact, over the years, the SAPS’ repeated failure to act on reports of the unlawful possession and movement of firearms at Glebelands contributed greatly to the number of hostel deaths.
Mdweshu, Ntshangase, Hlophe and Mcobothi were sentenced to 10 years each for the attempted murder of both Mthembus, Dyanthi and Mbekelwa, suspended for five years due to the time they had already served while awaiting the trial’s outcome.
Mbuthuma, Mcobothi, Mkhize, Mthethwa and Mbhele received multiple life sentences for the murders of Nkosinathi Ndovela, William Mthembu, Thokozani Machi, Thulani Khathi, Mzwandile Gawuza and Lucky Mtwa and further imprisonment for the attempted murder of Sithandiwe Sincuba and Sbongiseni Dlomo. Most of these hit men are already doing time for other Glebelands murders.
Mthethwa was also sentenced to 10 years for the unlawful possession of a prohibited firearm – a semi-automatic 9mm pistol – and ammunition.
All sentences will run concurrently.
The NPA stated it welcomed “the successful finalisation of this matter” and hoped that “this heavy sentencing will deter like-minded individuals and show the Glebelands hostel community the kind of stance that the government is taking in response to this level of violence.”
Over the years the government’s stance on Glebelands has been very clear. Included among the remedial actions contained in the Public Protector’s 2017 report on the hostel violence was the provision of trauma counselling for violence victims, alternative housing for those violently evicted, proper investigation into all incidents of police torture, the establishment of a satellite police station at the hostel and the urgent maintenance and upgrade of the hostel’s squalid living conditions.
With the exception of the satellite police station, which is only open during office hours and manned by one or two besieged officers from the nearby Umlazi police station, no further interventions have been forthcoming to alleviate the community’s suffering or prevent further killings.
The government’s response to the slaughter that left over a hundred dead between 2014, and the 2017 arrest of the Glebelands Eight has also been very clear: foot soldiers will rot in jail, while the masterminds will probably be free men in less than five years. The fact that the ringleader was a police officer whose duty was to “serve and protect” the community, not run guns, train and arm hit men and kill his avowed enemies, appears to have escaped the judge. Instead of making an example of Mdweshu, the judge has rewarded his cunning.
Either the NPA is incredibly naive to think these sentences will act as a deterrent, or thinks we are. There are dozens of hit men still active at Glebelands, young men with little hope of a future who rely on the killing economy to make a living.
Life sentences will not deter them when, just as it was during apartheid, hostel dwellers’ lives still mean nothing.
As one disgusted survivor remarked following the sentencing: “Judge Chili has spat in our faces.”
Perhaps worst of all, however, has been the State’s treatment of its key witness. Back in July 2017, a former Glebelands leader testified before the Moerane Commission of inquiry into KZN’s political killings. Among other disturbing issues, he told the commission about a police officer and resident of Block 52 who forced residents to “donate” money that was later used to buy automatic rifles and assorted handguns to kill other residents.
Directly after his testimony, the witness received death threats and was warned that he should not return to work because police officers who were not really police officers would be paying him a visit. The witness panicked and after providing statements to the police, was eventually placed in the Witness Protection Programme.
It took a further six months before the police could build a strong enough case to arrest Mdweshu and his co-accused, and further charges were added later. Other witnesses were justifiably too terrified to co-operate with the police ‒ after all, seven witnesses in various Glebelands murders had been killed by then, the most notably, Sipho Ndovela who was gunned down at the Umlazi Magistrate’s Court in 2015.
Ndovela had been going to provide the former head of Umlazi SAPS detectives with a statement that implicated Bongani Hlophe, brother of “Wonderboy” Hlophe – among the eight accused – in the 2015 killing of Fikile Siyephu. Had he lived, Ndovela’s statement would have also revealed that the investigating officer in the Siyephu matter had specifically instructed him to omit Bongani’s alleged role in Siyephu’s murder from his statement. This same officer was among those police members whom residents had accused of torturing associates of the Glebelands Eight’s victims, including the unlawful arrest and torture of a woman and the fatal tubing of Zinakile Fica in March 2014.
The very same officer had also been the initial investigator in the attempted assassination of the two Mthembus ‒ Dyanthi and Mbekelwa ‒ before Glebelands cases were taken over by a provincial task team following a barrage of collusion accusations. Members of the task team had a difficult time convincing fearful witnesses to come forward.
Combined with the government’s decades-long disinterest in improving the lot of hostel dwellers] trust in the police – in fact, trust in the State as a whole – had been completely decimated among the affected community. But this changed after that first witness broke his silence before the Moerane Commission.
Sickened by what he was seeing, he and another resident had become police informers. They warned crime intelligence members there would be a hit on Ndovela, but it seems they were not taken seriously. During the trial, the witness told the court how Mdweshu had used the SAPS CAS system to establish the date of Ndovela’s court appearance.
Because the community was aware of the threats to Ndovela, block leaders had requested that the police escort him to and from court. However, when the escort arrived, to everyone’s horror, not least of all Ndovela’s, one of the two officers was none other than the former Umlazi SAPS detective who had interfered with his statement on Siyephu’s murder, the same investigating officer who had conveniently failed to make any headway in the attempted murder of the two Mthembus, for which Mdweshu would later receive 10 years’ imprisonment.
This same officer, the witness later told the court, was seen celebrating with Hlophe and Mdweshu’s Block 52 friends after the September 2015 killing of William Mthembu and Thokozani Machi. The same officer who, according to IPID records, was present when Fica suffocated to death in police custody with a SAPS evidence bag over his head.
Following his testimony over several gruelling days in late 2019 and long before the trial was concluded, the witness was prematurely released from the Witness Protection Programme. A three-month-long struggle with the NPA ensued to get him readmitted after word was received that he would be hunted down and killed the moment he returned to his family or place of employment.
Terrified for his safety and left with no means to support himself or his family, the witness was forced to rely on charity.
For anyone not familiar with the workings of the Witness Protection Programme, State witnesses must be compensated with the same amount they would have earned had they not been placed in danger and forced to absent themselves from their job. This is a huge deterrent for irregular workers as the State then only pays a nominal stipend of a few hundred rand and the amount, according to other survivors of the programme, seems to vary from between R750 and R900 per month.
This man, however, had left a good job and would have received an annual increment and Christmas bonus. Having been in the programme for several years, this would have meant that at least his income would have kept up with the vastly increased cost of living. However, he claimed that he did not receive these benefits while in the programme and was considerably out of pocket.
Employers are also not permitted to fire or retrench State witnesses for the duration of their stay in the programme. But as we know, 2020 was the year that Covid-19 annihilated many businesses. The key witness, who had by then been absent from his job for over two years, was among the thousands of casualties of the pandemic-induced economic meltdown. Months later, this sole breadwinner for his family of five received notification that he had been dismissed.
Further frantic negotiations with the NPA followed to ensure his family did not starve while he remained in the programme.
Now the Glebelands Eight trial has been concluded and the witness is due to be released from witness protection. His evidence was instrumental in obtaining at least six life sentences and lengthy imprisonment for most of the accused. But what will become of him now that the ringleaders – who will have every reason to exact revenge on those who put them behind bars – will be free in five years or less?
Dismissed from a good job, isolated from family, friends and community for nearly six years, and permanently worried about his safety and economic future, the witness has endured his own equivalent of imprisonment. But while the justice system saw fit to take into consideration the time the Glebelands Eight had already served when handing down sentence, there is no such accommodation for the witness. Having completed his “sentence” he cannot simply return in safety to a family whom he can no longer afford to support.
Will the NPA offer permanent relocation and a new identity so he can start life afresh after risking everything for the State’s case? He is, after all, a lowly hostel dweller and we all know the “government’s stance” on the Glebelands community.
Will this witness survive? That is entirely up to the NPA.
Will the extraordinarily lenient sentencing of Mdweshu, Ntshangase and Hlophe have a negative impact on the community? Undoubtedly.
What is certain, however, is that the judge’s failure to strongly censure Mdweshu and remove him from society for a lengthy period will be more of a deterrent to future witnesses than potential hit men.
That the judge also failed to send a strong message to criminal cops that their conduct will not be tolerated is also likely to further demoralise dedicated SAPS officers, especially those who worked long and hard to bring the Glebelands Eight to justice.
As another former Glebelands resident concluded after he learnt of Mdweshu’s light sentence, “I have lost all faith in the criminal justice system.” All of which is precisely why communities are resorting increasingly to the gun instead of the gavel to resolve their problems.
Vanessa Burger is an Independent Community Activist for Human Rights & Social Justice
Daily News