Two men accused of shooting dead three KZN metered taxi drivers and stealing their cars to sell for parts have appeared in court.
|||Pietermaritzburg - Two men accused of shooting dead three metered taxi drivers and stealing their cars to sell for parts appeared in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday.
Samkelo Mathews Maphumulo, 32, and Siyabonga Praise God Zimu, 27, pleaded not guilty to murdering Sphamandla Zondi, Zephrid Nxumalo and Xolani Hlela, and to aggravated robbery committed in 2010.
Sibusiso Ngcobo, a mechanic, was called as a witness on Wednesday. He was told he would be absolved from prosecution as an accomplice if the court concluded he had told the truth.
Ngcobo testified that he met Maphumulo in Pietermaritzburg's New Prison in 2004, and they became acquaintances.
In mid-2010, Maphumulo and Zimu asked him to strip a Mazda 323 belonging to Zondi, he told the court.
When he asked about blood on a wheel, Maphumulo told him Zondi had been shot dead.
Later that year, he saw Maphumulo driving a Toyota Corolla and asked him if he also wanted it stripped, but was told arrangements had already been made to sell the vehicle.
Maphumulo told him the driver had also been shot, but had survived.
According to the charge sheet, Nxumalo, who drove a Toyota Corolla, was wounded in a shooting in Pietermaritzburg on June 26, 2010, and died in hospital on August 10.
The case continues on Thursday. - Sapa