Durban — The 2010 murder trial of a warrant officer who had been attached to the controversial Durban Organised Crime Unit, also previously known as the Cato Manor squad, continues on Thursday (today).
Kwazi Ndlovu, 16, was shot while sleeping on a couch in the lounge of his eSikhawini home in Empangeni.
The trial of Warrant Officer Gonasagren Padayachee began on Monday in the Durban Magistrate’s Court. On Wednesday the State closed its case but later withdrew this due to documentation acting magistrate V Alamachand required before the State could close its case.
State prosecutor advocate Sandesh Sankar read into the record the accused’s admissions in terms of Section 220 of the Criminal Procedure Act about the case.
“The deceased’s identity is not in dispute, that he died on 1 April 2010 as a result of multiple gunshot injuries shown in the post-mortem report and that post-mortem report findings are true and correct,” read Sankar.
It is alleged that members of the unit burst into Kwazi’s home and fired shots in his direction. Further, the unit allegedly later claimed that they were in pursuit of a prison escapee who was believed to be hiding in Kwazi’s home.
Padayachee’s warrant of arrest, for him to appear in court in eSikhawini, was obtained by the Director of Public Prosecution in KZN last year and the matter was transferred to the Durban Regional Court.
Padayachee underwent a disciplinary hearing and was acquitted.
On Wednesday, the deceased teen’s mother, Lindiwe Ndlovu, was cross-examined by Padayachee’s defence counsel, Carl van der Merwe, who presented a statement he said she made in 2012 after one she made in 2010 following the death. He questioned the mother over evidence she had led in court which was not in both statements.
In her evidence in chief, Ndlovu had identified the accused by pointing him out in court as an officer who was at her home on the day of the shooting, standing and blocking the lounge door.
She told the court that on that day while waiting for paramedics after her son had been killed, she asked a white officer on the scene why they had killed her son, and he said he had not been there and that was when she pointed at Padayachee, saying he was there.
Ndlovu said that she approached him and asked him some questions and he apologised, saying he was sorry that he had a gun.
During her cross-examination, Ndlovu maintained that she had told officers the information she led in her evidence in chief but it had not been written in her statement.
She said: “I did mention it. They did not record it. My story has never changed. What is not in the statement that I told the police I knew I’d get a chance to say it here (in court).
“I told them it was an Indian policeman that was standing at the lounge door with a gun … Most things are not in the statement. In fact, the statement was not written by me, they (the police) were writing.”
Van der Merwe put it to Ndlovu that Padayachee was not at the scene when Ndlovu was apologised to, adding that he had left with senior officers going to another scene.
Ndlovu said: “He was there. He would not leave after a child was killed. He was there and would go out sometime and come back inside the house.”
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