|
'He likes to stab people'
05/05/2008 23:03 - (SA)
Grahamstown - A State witness told the Grahamstown High Court on Monday that one of the men accused of killing a Cradock police officer had stabbed him the day after the murder.
Bakhulule Ngwala-Ngwala, 20, and Siyabonga Jim, 19, of Lingelihle, Cradock, appeared before Judge Jeremy Pickering and one assessor.
They have pleaded not guilty to the murder of off-duty police inspector Bazil John Quilie, 38, on October 10 last year.
State witness Marsell Makwena said he had seen the two accused in a tavern with one Xolani Xhebhana, the day after the policeman had been killed.
Makwena said Jim stabbed him after they had an argument.
"I was bleeding badly and ran away from there. I think he [Jim] likes to stab people," he said.
According to evidence already led, Quilie and his girlfriend were walking home from a tavern that evening, when the two accused - who knew he was a policeman - attacked and stabbed him to death.
"They had just killed a ghost"
Medical evidence indicated that Quilie sustained 38 stab wounds and had died of cardiac arrest and respiratory distress.
The court heard from state witnesses that Quilie had died in Tabok street, Michausdal, after his girlfriend had screamed for people to help him, but no one had.
When police arrested the pair two days after the murder, they claimed the blood found on a knife in their possession was that of a springbok that they had recently slaughtered and eaten.
In Xhebhana's evidence, it emerged that he had met the two accused the morning after the murder of Quilie.
"They [the accused] told me they had just killed a ghost."
When asked by senior State advocate Glenn Turner "what on earth" was meant by such an odd expression, the court interpreter interjected and said that it was tsotsi lingo for the killing and robbing of a person who was very drunk at the time.
The trial continues.
|
News
