Durban — According to the nurse alleged to have hired two men to kidnap and kill her husband, one of the hitmen convicted for his part in the murder and who turned State witness, lied to the court in his evidence.
Nomphumelelo Patricia Goncalves told the Durban High Court on Thursday that she didn’t know why James Mashudu “Ramaphosa” Mthimkhulu fabricated everything he said about her while testifying.
Goncalves said this after her counsel advocate Siphelele Zwane asked for her comment on evidence by Mthikhulu that she wanted her husband killed and offered him R15 000 to do it to which he had said that the amount was too small.
“Ramaphosa was telling a lie, I’ve never asked him to kill any person for me and I’ve never paid him R15 000. And that aspect of the R15 000 being little is also a lie because I’ve never made any request from him nor offered him money. All I know of Ramaphosa is that he was a person who was going to work with Nkosinathi (accused 1). I have no knowledge of this killing aspect,” she said.
Goncalves and her brother Nkosinathi Steve Zungu are on trial and both face kidnapping and robbery with aggravated circumstances as well as murder charges while Goncalves also faces two counts of defeating the course of justice.
The nurse is alleged to have hired Zungu along with Mthimkhulu to carry out the murder of Transnet engineer Nkosi Timmy Langa on September 29, 2020.
Goncalves after this registered two false cases with police, one of a missing person and the other of a stolen car. Mthimkhulu is a state witness in the matter and is already serving time for his part in the crime where Langa was allegedly forced into his Isuzu X-Rider at his home near Hampshire Place in Pinetown and taken to a forest in Ozwatini.
Ramaphosa’s evidence is that he met Goncalves on September 28 when she came to Kenville and while in her car with Zungu and Mandisa Ngidi, it was discussed that the nurse wanted Langa killed.
On Thursday Goncalves said the day she was in Kenville to give her brother a portion of the money he had asked her for to buy an angle grinder for his tiling work was the first time she met Ramaphosa.
“I think I’m smart enough to not ask someone I'm meeting for the first time to go and kill someone… I don’t know why he’d say I gave them instructions to kill a person. I didn’t ask him to go and kill my husband. I’d say he was still telling lies. Even if he said that R15 000 was little and even if he would assist, I have no knowledge of how much it costs to assist in killing.”
The trial continues.
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