Durban — A man alleged to have strangled and assaulted his 8-year-old son killing him last year in January claims that the little boy “fell and hit his forehead on a stone”.
This is what P Dlamini, the Legal Aid lawyer for Siyabonga Innocent Shezi, told the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday during his client’s pretrial conference when he tendered in his defence for his not-guilty plea.
Shezi, who had previously abandoned his bail application, on Tuesday indicated that he now wanted bail.
Sfundo Sibisi would have turned 10 in April and would be in Grade 4, most likely at uMthala Primary School in KwaNdengezi.
It is alleged that Shezi had broken up with the mother of his child at the time of the murder.
Nonhlanhla Sibisi, the boy’s mother, said she had been at work that day and Shezi had phoned her telling her he had murdered their child.
Shezi, she said, told her to go and look for their son in the bushes in Shongweni before animals ate him.
That was when Sibisi phoned her family in the Shongweni Dam area asking them to look for the boy’s body.
In March in court, it emerged that Shezi had tendered in a confession and had done a pointing out.
However, during the pre-trial on Tuesday when magistrate J Goorie asked if there would be any admissibility issues to be dealt with during the trial, State prosecutor Andre de Nysschen replied that there would be such in relation to the confession.
“There may be admissibility issues with regard to a purported confession and this may lead to a possible trial within a trial,” he said.
De Nysschen said the State intended to call six witnesses in the trial he estimated would take two days.
Dlamini told the court he was ready to proceed with the trial. It was set down to be heard in May and it was expected that between now and March, Shezi would have gone ahead with his bail application.
Outside court, Sibisi said she was not happy Shezi wanted to apply for bail.
“If they give him bail this means they are setting him free to come and kill me. He (Shezi) had previously told the investigating officer that if he gets out he will finish what he started. He did what he did intentionally because he had been saying he was going to kill me and my son. Why should he have the right to get bail when my rights have been infringed upon? He traumatised me by killing my son.”
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