Don't release my son's killers, pleads mother of victim

“I don’t want the woman who hired hit men to kill my son, or the co-accused, to be given bail because they are cruel and dangerous,” said a distraught Ms Makhulu Tshinakaho Mudau, mother of the late Azwifaneli Mudau, who was shot and killed on Valentine’s Day in 2019.

Mudau’s wife, Winnie Ntanganedzeni Nemaranzhe (34) and co-accused Tshivhangwaho Mudau (46), Tshililo Madega (31) and Takalani Nemutandani (33), were arrested in connection with the alleged murder in December 2020 after a lengthy police investigation.

When the bail hearing started, Nemutandani and Tshivhangwaho Mudau abandoned their bail application after their legal representatives had withdrawn from the case. Nemaranzhe and Madega opted to continue with their application.

Nemaranzhe is facing charges of conspiracy to murder. Her legal representative, Advocate Anneline van den Heever, told the court that she will submit an affidavit for her client’s bail application.

Mudau (37), who owned an electrical company called Rialivhuwa Electrical Engineering in Makwarela Extension outside Thohoyandou, was killed on 14 February 2019. Shortly before he was killed, Nemaranzhe allegedly phoned him and told him to bring two loaves of bread and pocket money for his kids. He was shot in front of his house’s gate and died on the scene.

The prosecution made an application last week for the bail application to be postponed, to enable them to centralise all pending cases against Madega, Nemutandani and Mudau. They are facing charges of murder, armed robbery with aggravated circumstances, housebreaking with intent to steal and theft in Thohoyandou and Vuwani respectively. The prosecution has, however, not centralised the cases as it did not get a centralisation certificate from the Thohoyandou High Court due to a power outage in the specific court. The four accused have been remanded in custody.

Ms Mudau (82) addressed the press outside the Thohoyandou Magistrates Court on Tuesday, 2 February, shortly after the four suspects’ bail application was postponed to 9 and 10 February. She said that she nearly fainted when she was told that her son was killed, as he provided for the family to make a living. She said that, since the death of her son, she’s had difficulty to sleep at night. She told the media that there was one week, before the suspects were arrested, when she and her family were forced to sleep at the trauma centre in Tshilidzini hospital, because someone threatened to kill the whole family if they continued to speak aloud about the gruesome murder of her son.

Mudau’s elder brother, Mr Nnyambeni Mudau, said that his brother was everything in the family. Many of his family members worked for him, and close to twenty of them will now be unemployed.

Date:13 February 2021

By: Silas Nduvheni

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