Police dragged their feet, say murder victim's family

Murder, kidnapping and rape suspect Mashudu Bele abandoned his bail application when he appeared before Magistrate Farhana Hussain at the Thohoyandou Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 4 April.

When he entered the court, mainly occupied by the late Fhatuwani Asnath Nguluvhe’s family members, he looked at the packed gallery and immediately told his legal aid lawyer that he was abandoning his bail application and would like to face his charges while in custody. Bele is facing charges of being in possession of stolen property, kidnapping, rape and murder. His case was postponed to 21 June for further police investigations.

Immediately after the case was postponed, Nguluvhe’s brother, Mr Livhuwani Munyai, who has been in close contact with Limpopo Mirror since the incident happened on 6 March this year, said he was not happy with how the police had been investigating the case from the start, but that he was relieved that a suspect had been arrested and was facing trial.

Munyai himself is an investigator based in Gauteng. He also has a diploma in Criminal Justice and Forensic Investigation, obtained from the University of Johannesburg. “From the very first day after my sister disappeared, I asked the investigating officer to apply for a Section 205 to speed up the investigations, but it was not done,” he said.

Munyai was referring to Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which allows the investigating officer to subpoena people and businesses to reveal certain information. This is used, for example, to obtain information from cellphone service providers, which can assist in tracing suspects.

“The suspect would have been arrested earlier, but the police dragged their feet and did nothing. It was only after I had contacted their boss, Brigadier Mukwevho - eight days after she had disappeared - and threatened to contact the province, that the Section 205 was done. What if I did not push them? I was also surprised when I asked for the K9 (dog) unit to assist right after the disappearance. I was told that the unit is based in Sibasa, but that they have to apply in Polokwane. There is something seriously wrong with this arrangement. The police investigations here are very, very pathetic, especially if it does not involve a direct family member of a police officer. They don’t even care how the victims’ next of kin feel after such incidents,” he said.

Munyai said that after the Section 205 request had been approved, they had obtained video footage from a local garage and a well-known liquor store. “We also got her banking details and saw how the suspect used my sister’s Capitec bank card. At the local garage, the suspect is seen wearing a white hat when he purchased petrol for R1 000, using my sister’s bank card at 02:14. At the liquor outlet, he was wearing a Bermuda as he bought beer for R85. This was shortly after 09:00 in the morning, after her disappearance,” he said.

After Bele was finally arrested, he allegedly showed the police where he had dumped the body. Munyai said he had nearly broken down when he had seen his sister’s decomposed body. “The post-mortem was done last Thursday (30 March) in Polokwane, but they are still going to do another post-mortem in Johannesburg, where they can really confirm what had happened,” he said.

The deceased’s in-laws were also in court. Mrs Martha Mavhetha said they were heartbroken. “All we need now is that justice has to take its course and we would like to see the suspect rotting in jail,” she said.

Nguluvhe is survived by her two daughters, five sisters, two brothers and her mother.

Date:07 April 2023

By: Victor Mukwevho

Victor Mukwevho Ne-vumbani joined the Mirror during it's inception in 1990. He joined the SABC newsroom in 1995, and was known by  listeners as "A u fhedzisela ari". He was a news editor for The Tembisan Newspaper from 2007 to 2015. He rejoined the Limpopo Mirror newspaper in June 2022 as a freelance journalist.

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