Tip-off saves ‘hit’ target
Durban student Nomonde Dlamini is lucky to be alive after a woman allegedly ordered a hit on her, which was foiled by police. Photo: Gcina Ndwalane Durban student Nomonde Dlamini is lucky to be alive after a woman allegedly ordered a hit on her, which was foiled by police. Photo: Gcina Ndwalane
Durban - A tip-off by a good Samaritan saved the life of a Durban student after the fiancée of a relative allegedly plotted to have her raped and killed – after treating her to a Nando’s meal.
Nomonde Dlamini, 26, was on Sunday counting her blessings as she spoke for the first time about the planned attempt on her life, her anonymous saviour, a police sting operation and the arrest of her three would-be killers.
She likened the experience to a scene from a crime thriller.
The Newlands West woman, studying financial management at a Durban college, said the suspects wanted her dead so they could take over the house she inherited from her parents, who died in 2006.
Dlamini, the mother of a five-year-old boy, alerted the police after receiving an anonymous tip-off that her life was in danger.
She was asked by officers of the SAPS commercial crime unit and the provincial tracking team to play along when the two suspects – the brother of her relative’s fiancée and another man – invited her out to dinner at the Suncoast casino complex on Friday.
Before that, she said she had received numerous phone calls from one of the suspects, who kept asking to take her out on a date.
“I kept asking him where he knew me from and how he got my number but he always responded by saying he met me in town and that I gave him my number,” Dlamini said.
“He told me his name but I could not recall meeting him… I then became suspicious.”
After receiving a phone call from a private number from an unknown person who warned her about the hit and who had ordered it, she alerted police.
At the Suncoast food court on Friday, undercover police watched the two suspects dining with Dlamini, who was wired with a listening device.
“I was face to face with my would-be killers. I was shaking, scared but I acted brave,” she said. “Many things were going through mind, like what if this does not go according to plan and what if something goes wrong?
“Just knowing that I was to be raped and killed made me tremble to a point where I had tears in my eyes.
“But I couldn’t show them that I knew something,” she said. “They did not act strange at all and they were talkative.”
After they finished their meal, Dlamini said she told them she was going to take a cab home, but the suspects insisted they would take her.
“As we approached the vehicle they were travelling in one of the suspects opened the door for me. I started to panic as I looked around to see if the police were following us,” she said. “Just three steps away from the car, the police pounced on them.”
The two suspects were arrested on the spot after being questioned. A woman was later arrested in Newlands West.
The trio are accused of conspiracy to commit murder. The alleged plan was to rape Dlamini and kill her by strangling her with a chain. They were allegedly going to leave her body in a remote area.
Dlamini said it was like a scene from a movie when everything unfolded and her would-be killers – aged 26 and 23 – allegedly confessed to the planned hit allegedly ordered by the 41-year-old woman.
“I am still in disbelief and in shock after the incident. [The woman] and I have never got along and were always quarrelling over petty things… but planning to kill me is too much. I never thought it would get this far,” said Dlamini, speaking from the SAPS Durban headquarters in Bram Fischer (Ordnance) Road. She was full of praise for the police for their sterling work. Dlamini said she was stunned to hear from a relative that this was not the first attempt to kill her this year.
“This relative told me that I was supposed to drink milk with rat poison and die, but that plan was unsuccessful. I took this information to the police,” she said.
It is alleged that the two suspects were given R1 000 to host Dlamini on Friday and were going to be paid R4 000 if the hit was successful.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesman, Colonel Vincent Mdunge, said on Sunday that the suspects allegedly confessed to using some of the money to hire the vehicle they were using that night.
“The [police] mission was accomplished: assassination averted, an innocent life was saved,” he said.
Three suspects are expected to appear at the Verulam Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Daily News