The court heard the man carried the albino girl on his back before she was chopped into pieces for muti.
The traditional healer in the killing of 13-year-old Gabisile Shabane and 1-year-old Nkosikhona Ngwenya has come back to strike at cops, accusing them of forcing a confession out of him.
During an emotional bail application at the eMalahleni Magistrates Court on Tuesday (6 Mar) this week the state heard how Thokozani Msibi was forced to confess to beheading Gabisile’s head.
The girl’s head and other body parts were found by cops at Msibi’s operating room in the eMpumelelweni township of eMalahleni during a confession and Msibi had led them to where he had buried the girl in a shallow grave next to the highway towards Tshwane.
Through his lawyer Zamo Sibisi, Msibi told Magistrate Darleen Venter that the police tortured him and forced him to make statements during the arrest on 20 February 2018.
“The accused,” Msibi’s lawyer told the court, “stated that whatever statements or pointing out he made was not done voluntarily,” said Sibisi.
But state prosecutor Fanie Mavundla said police found the body parts of Gabisile at the traditional healer’s operating business and he also showed the police a shallow grave in Cullinan, east of Tshwane, where the dismembered body of the albino girl had been buried.
“Our witness said he was there when Gabisile’s head was chopped off,” said Mavundla, opposing bail for Msibi.
SEE HERE: Man confessed to cutting off Gabisile’s head for Muti
“The witness said he carried that girl on his back. He then went to a traditional healer in Swaziland and asked him to cleanse him of bad luck. He was going to pay that traditional healer with a vagina of the girl, but the traditional healer refused. That traditional healer is also a State witness,” Mavundla told the fully packed court in Down Town.
Annah Shabane, mother of Gabisile, hearing the grisly details of how her daughter was murdered, began crying loudly in court.
Msibi and three others are facing charges of murder and two counts of kidnapping after they allegedly went to Gabisile’s home on the Sunday night of 28 January 2018, breaking a dinning room window and kidnapping the two children while they were asleep with their moms.
Nkosikhona, who had apparently been mistaken for another albino toddler who lived in the Shabane house in the Hlalanikahle township of eMalahleni, was then dumped hear the N4 towards Tshwane.
Families of both children could not hold tears in court, crying loudly.
Msibi’s co-accused Mthokozisi Mkhize will appear separately on 13 March 2018 for bail application.
His application could not be dealt with on Tuesday as he still has to appoint a lawyer.
Msibi’s lawyer said the court has a very weak case against him as most of the evidence was attained from him and nowhere else.
The court heard that Msibi and two others wanted the body parts in order to grow their businesses. A fourth suspect, a traditional healer, was also arrested in Swaziland last week.
The court denied Msibi bail.
(edited by MLM)
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