SAMWU murders: Witness points out Simon Radzuma as shooter
A witness told the court that on the day Ronald Mani was murdered, he received several calls and each time Ronald answered, the caller would not say anything.
LIMPOPO – As the murder trial against the Radzuma brothers continued in the Limpopo High Court in Thohoyandou last week, one of the brothers was pointed out as the one who shot and killed Ronald Mani, one of the slain South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) members in the Vhembe District Municipality in 2019.
Under oath, a witness in the murder case of Ronald Mani (50) and Jimson Musetsho (50), recalled in court last Tuesday what had happened on January 30, 2019 when Mani was shot and killed in Sings Tavern in Itsani village.
He said he and Mani had been friends for more than 10 years and would often meet up after work to relax and socialise. On the day of his murder, Mani had received several calls on his cellphone from an unknown person, the witness stated, but every time he answered, the caller would not say anything.
Later that night, at around 19:30, the same thing happened, he said. “I went to buy each of us a beer, and when I came back, he was on the phone again, saying no one was speaking. Shortly afterwards, gunshots rang out.”
He said the shooter did not make an attempt to cover his face. “I saw the person who shot my friend. Mani immediately fell to the ground, and Emergency Medical Services workers came and declared him dead.”
He said he was able to positively identify the person who shot Mani, and pointed at Simon Radzuma.
During cross-questioning, Simon Radzuma’s legal representative, Adv Gundo Lidovho questioned how he was able to identify the shooter if he had been sitting in a vehicle to which the witness replied that the shooter had not covered his face.
Mani and Musetsho were shot dead in separate incidents in January 2019, after the two spoke out about the Vhembe Municipality’s investing R300 million in the now defunct VBS Mutual Bank.
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Meanwhile, judge Thohogomelani Tshidada told the legal representatives of the Radzuma brothers, Adv Ntsako Hlongwane and Adv Lidovho to not cause unnecessary delays in the case by calling witnesses that are irrelevant to the facts tested. This was in reference to an earlier witness who was called to testify about the bodies.
“The doctor who examined the bodies was called in as a witness, but this was unnecessary. We want to speed up the trial and be done with the case. If the accused are delaying the trial themselves, it is their own fault and not us as the court,” Tshidada remarked.
Percy Radzuma, shortly before the session concluded, requested that television cameras be allowed to capture the proceedings, as there was something, he said, that he wanted to reveal about the murders that “the whole nation should watch”. The trial continues.
