Dries LiebenbergThe trial about the assassination of the former ANC Youth League Deputy Secretary-General – Sindiso Magaqa – is expected to get underway in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday.Magaqa was a member of the Umzimkhulu council’s executive committee when he and 2 other councillors were shot as they returned from a meeting in 2017.
The other suspected hitman – Jabulani Mdunge – died in a shootout with police during a foiled cash-in-transit heist. This was two months after gunmen armed with handguns and an AK476 assault rifle opened fire on the vehicles of Magaqa, and councillors Jabulile Msiya and Nonsikelelo Mafa in July 2017. Magaqa died from his wounds weeks later in hospital.
The start of the trial in 2019 were initially delayed because the accused did not have legal representation. It was then remanded to April 2020 in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, but the COVID 19 pandemic broke out a month before the start of the trial. Magaqa’s murder was one of the high profile cases which were probed by the Moerane Commission into political killings between 2011 and 2018, when the commission issued its report. While the commission was busy with its inquiry between 2016 and 2018, there were 40 political killings in the province. This is one of the first cases that the commission probed, that would be going to trial.
Witnesses at the commission had expressed their dismay that suspects are seldom arrested in connection with political killings, and even more rarely successfully prosecuted.
conspirators are still not known&there’s nothing called AK476 assault rifle.Then it must be expected that the case will be postponed,b/c of SABCNews wrong media reporting and this isn’t a mistake,but is purposely done to influence public opinion about the case🚮. PhalaPhalaGate
Why now? Update us of ramaphosa phala phala farm crimes please. Not this nonsensical magaqa thing.