Falsely imprisoned brothers freed from 106-year sentence

In one particular case, the brothers were accused of robbing a driver and passengers on a bus on the N2 near Umzinto in KwaZulu-Natal, on October 6, 2001. Only three out of the 58 passengers that were on the bus claimed to be able to identify the perpetrators, South Coast Herald reported.

One of the brothers, Vusimuzi, said he was glad he was being released while his aunt and his mother were still alive. “They used to be worried about us, and we were worried about their illnesses,” he added.

His brother, Sboniso, said: “I’m quite relieved because I think this is the beginning of a new journey. We were arrested for something which we had nothing to do with. Charges were levelled against us. We have never admitted to those charges from the beginning because we knew nothing about them.”

The brothers, from Umzinto, were arrested that year for armed robbery, impersonation of a police officer and were accused of orchestrating fake roadblocks to rob motorists. At the time they were aged 16 and 18 respectively, and denied being at the scene.

The pair were convicted on 16 counts of robbery and one of impersonating a police officer. They were sentenced to their lengthy terms on November 23, 2005 in the Scottburgh Regional Court by the magistrate, A Mfayela.

Mfayela relied on the identification to convict the Mnguni brothers on the other robbery charges when in fact there was no evidence linking them. “[the magistrate] was not entitled to find that the very same perpetrators were involved in each incident,” explained Judge Rashid Vahed.

Their case was revisited on May 21, and the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court of Appeal dropped the charges due to a lack of evidence. Original case records had gone missing.

– Caxton News Service