Mulalo Sivhidzho's claims of torture were dismissed yesterday as lies. Illustration: Sibusiso Dubazana Mulalo Sivhidzho's claims of torture were dismissed yesterday as lies. Illustration: Sibusiso Dubazana
A widow accused of hiring hitmen to kill her husband had made a “confession” to the police “freely and voluntarily”.
Acting Judge Naren Pandya found Mulalo Sivhidzho had her “sound and sober senses” about her when she confessed her role in the December 7, 2006 murder of her chartered accountant husband, Avhatakali Netshisaulu.
The couple had been married for seven months when Netshisaulu, the son of former City Press editor-in-chief Mathatha Tsedu, was bludgeoned and shoved into his car’s boot before it was set alight.
Sivhidzho is appearing in the Johannesburg High Court with the man accused of recruiting the assassins, Ntabudzeni Matsenene, and one of the men charged with murder, Johannes Arnold Sello.
Three other co-accused, all Zimbabweans, were released because of lack of evidence.
Yesterday, Judge Pandya found that Sivhidzho’s claims – that she had confessed to the murder under duress because she was tortured – was fraught with contradictions.
Sivhidzho had, during the main trial and trial-within-a-trial, argued that detectives in Germiston had suffocated her by covering her head with surgical plastic to coerce her into confessing to the murder.
She claimed she was injured on her wrist, arm and knee after police repeatedly slapped and kicked her in a bid to get her to confess.
Judge Pandya dismissed these claims yesterday.
“Accused three (Sivhidzho) contradicted herself… (and) on more than one occasion she tried to evade direct questions.”
Judge Pandya added: “The court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that her evidence that she was tortured cannot be reasonably true.
“(Her) evidence that she was tortured to make the statement is rejected as false.
“She is lying.”
Criticising Sivhidzho’s testimony, Judge Pandya said: “It is indeed a strange behaviour that one shouldn’t expect from an educated and intelligent person.”
He rejected the widow’s evidence that she was denied her right to a legal representative before making the statement that contained her confession.
Judge Pandya said he was satisfied with the police’s evidence that they had explained her rights to her.
“The fact is, the accused knew of her right to remain silent.
“The question is: why did she make the statement.
“The court is satisfied that (her rights were properly explained to her… (but that she) never waived her right to consult a lawyer.
“The court is satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt that she made the (confession) statement freely and voluntarily and that she was in sound and sober senses.”
As the judge said this and read Sivhidzho’s murder ”confession”, her parents and relatives listened in stony silence, their heads bowed.
In her statement, Sivhidzho said she had wanted to kill her husband because he was cheating on her and was getting “SMSes from the girls”.
This, she said, had made her feel unsafe in the marriage.
She also stated that she had wanted him killed because she wanted to inherit his money.
Earlier this week, Judge Pandya dismissed Matsenene and Sello’s claims that they had been tortured until they also confessed to Netshisaulu’s murder.
Judgment continues.
