Mlambos Express murder trial enters second day

The trial of a Somali National accused of brutally murdering a member of Zimbabwe's ace rhumba group Mlambos Express Band on the 26th of May 2013, entered its second day at the Pretoria Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The trial against the Somalian accused of the cold blooded murder of the band's front man Thuthani "Superman" Ndlovu kicked off on Tuesday with the court summoning four state witnesses to the witness stand. The four witnesses on the stand were 2 forensic experts from the South African Police Services, the Police Officer who arrested the accused and a crime scene expert also from the SAPS who took photos of the crime scene. The four witnesses gave indisputable evidence of their discoveries from evidence extracted from the crime scene. The forensic reports positively identified the bullet cartridges recovered at the scene to have been shot from the accused's gun a fact which the accused could not dispute. The accused did not also dispute the evidence provided by the police officers as they both positively identified him to have been the man with the gun on the fateful afternoon.

After hours of damning evidence from the state witnesses the magistrate postponed the case to Wednesday for more state witnesses to present evidence.

Speaking after the first day of trial, Band Manager Thabani Ndlovu confidently indicated that the odds are extremely against the accused as all evidence is pointing to a guilt verdict. According to Ndlovu even the magistrate appeared showing signs of wanting to rush the case as there is no much defence coming from the accused enough for a long trial.

"Judging by the scale of this case, there is definitely no balance, it's 50 to 0 against the accused" said Ndlovu.

In day two of trial on Wednesday a further four witnesses took to the stand against the accused.

Two expert doctors were put into the box to narrate the cause of death of the two deceased persons and the nature of the wounds on the bodies. According to the medical reports the two died of gun shot wounds both behind their heads a sign that they were not facing the assailant either fleeing or oblivious of the danger at hand. The accused through his lawyer did not also immediately dispute the evidence provided by the doctors.

The next witness was a businessman who operates a tavern next to the Somali's shop. He gave a vivid account of what he observed on the day. The accused, through his lawyer, however, sought the court to dismiss the witness' evidence on grounds that the witness always had "clashes" with the accused in their business operations and so may not be used as a credible witness. The fourth witness was one of the members of the Band who was also at the scene of the shooting. He also gave evidence that collaborated well with the businessman's evidence and was also not immediately disputed by the defence.

Commenting after the second day of trial Band Manager Ndlovu further reiterated that the case is very much against the accused.

"He is in Hot soup, his false story is sour and obviously not convincing. It is a made up story that is not making any sense to anyone not even to his Lawyer."

The trial enters its third day on Thursday with the state presenting more witnesses. It is expected that two more members of the group who also witnessed the murder will give their evidence before the accused is allowed to cross examine the witnesses' evidence.

The state's case is that in the evening of Sunday the 26th of May 2013 at Diepsloot Township of Johannesburg, the accused, a Somali businessman shot and killed two people one of them being the Mlambos Express Band member and injured four others In a cold blood shooting. According to the state, the Band was on its routine promotional tour of their music when they parked in front of the businessman's shop and started playing their music to promote it upon which the businessman accused the group of making noise and blocking customers coming to his shop. This infuriated the Somalian who went into his shop, pulled a gun and shot towards the group members missing some of them include band manager Ndlovu but the deceased could not escape the bullets and was shot on the head from behind and died on the spot.