The grieving daughter of a man whose mutilated body was transported in a wheelie bin and dumped in a pigsty after he was brutally murdered has expressed frustration after the marathon case was again postponed on Tuesday – on the day judgment should have been handed down.
It has been nearly six years since the body of Philisile Dili, 58, was found in a Motherwell pigsty.
Shortly after, his 57-year-old estranged wife, Sisiwe Fiti-Dili, was arrested for his murder.
She is accused of hiring a hitman to kill her husband.
Dili’s daughter, Ntombekhaya, 37, said she was frustrated by the justice system and unable to find closure following a string of postponements of the case since 2013.
“I cannot find closure. I don’t know why this magistrate has been dragging this case for so long,” she said.
On Tuesday, the case was in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court for acting magistrate Bukky Olowookorun to deliver judgment, but the matter was postponed to April 4 because the magistrate was not available.
The postponement was the last straw for Ntombekhaya.
She spoke of the anguish her family has suffered due to the many delays.
She said her uncle, Mkhululi Dili died in 2015 and a few months later, her biological mother, Sontiwe, also died.
Both had attended the murder case prior to their deaths.
“I find it very difficult for the magistrate not to deliver the judgment considering that Christopher Panayiotou’s murder case has been finalised,” she said, referring to the jailed killer of Uitenhage teacher Jayde Panayiotou, who was murdered in 2015.
“We are tired. We lost family members,” Ntombekhaya said.
On the day of the fatal attack on August 17 2013, Dili had arrived with his stepdaughter at Fiti’s Kolisi Street home, where they had both lived before he moved out, to drop off groceries.
Later that evening, Dili was killed in the house by an alleged hitman, known only as Sihle, who was allegedly contracted by Fiti.
Sihle is on the run and police are searching for him.
Dili’s mutilated body was put in a dustbin and later wheeled to a pigsty, where it was found a few days later.