Durban — A KwaZulu-Natal family will have to wait anxiously through Christmas for justice in the murder of Nkosi Timmy Langa.
Langa was killed in his home with an electric cord that was cut from a clothes iron. It was allegedly put around his neck.
His brother-in-law, Nkosinathi Zungu, allegedly pulled one end while another hitman, James Mashudu Mthimkhulu, pulled the other.
Langa was kidnapped from his Pinetown home in 2020 in his Isuzu X-Raider, and the kidnappers drove him to a forest in Ozwathini, where he was strangled to death. The trial will continue in June in the Durban High Court.
Langa’s sister Zodwa said on Tuesday that the family has never celebrated Christmas, and the emotional scars deepened when their mother died the year after Nkosi’s murder.
“When the trial started this year, we had honestly thought come this time, it would have been finished, and we would have closure. We are heartbroken because the trial only continues in June. It’s like paraffin was poured over our emotional wounds. June is mid-year, and that just seems like an entire year of waiting again. We have no guarantee that when the trial starts, there won’t be any further delays, and it will finish next year.”
The court heard that the accused entered through a door that had been intentionally left unlocked, allegedly by Langa’s wife, Nomphumelelo Patricia Goncalves.
Goncalves, a nurse, and Zungu are charged with murder and robbery. Goncalves faces two more charges of defeating the course of justice for allegedly falsely reporting her husband missing and the theft of his car.
The trial got under way this year in the Durban High Court until Zungu, last week indicated that he wanted to change lawyers, an about-turn that Langa’s family had previously described as a delaying tactic.
Before that, the trial had begun in June and in the midst of it, already one of the alleged hitmen and now State witness had testified. Goncalves did not pitch at court but had been there the previous day. Instead, a doctor’s note was sent on her behalf. It is believed she had tried to end her life and told the court that subsequent to her diagnosis, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Howick for treatment.
Daily News