Chilling images from CCTV cameras at the Galleria mall show a man repeatedly stabbing his ex-girlfriend.
|||Durban - Chilling images captured by CCTV cameras at the Galleria shopping centre in eManzimtoti show how a man repeatedly stabbed his ex-girlfriend.
The footage was handed in as an exhibit in the Durban Regional Court yesterday when Skhumbuzo Shange, 30, from KwaMakhutha, was convicted of attempted murder.
Shange told the court that he was angry when Zinhle Rosemary Ngcobo, his girlfriend of 12 years, had told him that she wanted to end their relationship.
He said he still loved her.
Shange bought the knife that he used in the January 23 attack as he was on his way to the centre.
He pleaded guilty to attempted murder, but prosecutor Krishen Shah said during cross-examination that this was only because of the incriminating CCTV footage, which had led to his arrest.
“If you couldn’t have her, no one else could. You wanted to kill her,” Shah put it to Shange.
Shange replied softly: “Yes.”
He said he had received threats from Ngcobo’s new boyfriend, a policeman who he said was looking for him. He said he wanted to protect himself.
“He told me he would shoot me if he ever saw me and told me to go to a bush and hang myself,” Shange told the court.
On the day of the incident, Shange said he went speak to Ngcobo about the policeman.
He sat outside her workplace and waited for her, he said. When she emerged during her lunch break, he approached her.
Shange said Ngcobo had provoked him by swearing at him and pointing her fingers at him.
He said he became angered by her decision to end the relationship as well as the threats made by her new boyfriend.
During cross-examination by Shah, however, a different picture emerged.
Shah told the court that Shange had a history of violence and that in 2010 he was arrested on allegations of abuse, although Ngcobo later withdrew the charges.
In 2011, a protection order was granted against him.
But Shange said it was later lifted after he and Ngcobo “got together and settled the matter”.
The footage handed in as an exhibit yesterday shows Shange and Ngcobo walking among shoppers and speaking to each other.
The couple attract no attention from passers-by.
They continue to chat and it is when Ngcobo attempts to leave that Shange, his back to the camera, advances slightly and grabs her hand.
Shange pulls a knife out of his pocket and is clearly seen stabbing Ngcobo at least eight times before he runs off.
Ngcobo, who was stabbed in the chest and upper body, collapses at the entrance of a shop where onlookers and staff come to her aid.
Shange, who has been in custody since the incident, told the court he was remorseful. He said he had apologised to Ngcobo from prison and she had accepted his apology.
“I called her because I wanted to know if she was okay,” he said.
Regional magistrate Trevor Levitt adjourned the matter to May 29 for Ngcobo’s evidence regarding sentencing.
rizwana.umar@inl.co.za
Daily News