The court heard that the accused in the Senzo Meyiwa murder visited a traditional healer for cleansing soon after the murder. Sangoma Lion Robert Zwane who took to the stand today told the Pretoria High Court that he gave three men muthi called nhlanhl’emhlophe as they were going to look for work and they wanted their path to be enlightened where they were going. Days later, they went back and this time, they were looking for cleansing muthi as one of them was injured during the job. He pointed to accused number 1, Muzi Sibiya as the man he interacted with when the accused came to him to seek help.

CLEANSING MUTHI

Zwane testified that the three men came to him after one of them was injured at the job. "I then helped them with a cleansing ritual which is common when someone has lost a family member and, in this instance, they had met a misfortune. I gave them a cleansing muthi called "isihlazi sokugeza," he told the court, adding that he doesn’t know what happened after that. He said the muthi was also used for cleansing people who have lost a family member. When asked by state prosecutor, advocate George Baloyi about the date all this happened, Zwane said he is illiterate and that he doesn’t even know what today’s date was. He insisted that he only gave Sibiya and his accomplices muthi and he did not ask about the job they did.

PAID R500 FOR THE MUTHI

Asked if he charged the men, Zwane said he charges R100 for consultation and that the men did not consult and paid him for the muti. "Just like you are here working, this is also what I do, and for that, I got paid R500," he responded to Baloyi. According to Zwane, he never saw the accused again until the day they came to his house with the police. "I was taken in chains to the police, and I saw Sibaya again at the police station,” he said.

GUN WAS STOLEN IN CIT HEIST

An SBV Services manager told the court that the gun believed to have killed Meyiwa was stolen in a cash-in-transit heist in May 2013 at a shopping centre in Rabbie Ridge. Pieter Jacobus Smuts who works at the company specialising in firearm compliance was shown the murder weapon in a picture, he confirmed that the weapon was a CZ 9mm parabellum. "The firearm is related to the company, the serial number shows that the gun is under our company," he said. He read out a serial number and said that it was issued to the SBV services. He said the gun was reported stolen to the police then. The court was adjourned until tomorrow.