Webber murder trial postponed to September

The trial of four men accused of the brutal murder an elderly Kabega Park woman was postponed on Tuesday after the Port Elizabeth High Court heard that one of the accused had appointed an attorney to represent him.

This, after the state in March closed it case against Mkhuseli Ngqanda, 29, Fikile Mengo, 27, Sinethemba Nenembe, 33, and Thanduxolo Vumazonke, 23, who are charged with the August 2015 murder of Denise Webber, 76.

The four accused face charges of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

At the start of the trial all four pleaded not guilty.

On Tuesday, defence attorney Peter Daubermann indicated to the court he had since been appointed to represent Nenembe, who had initially represented himself.

Daubermann asked judge Irma Schoeman for a postponement so he could go through about  2,000 pages of transcripts and “a lengthy bundle of evidence”.

Advocate Johan van der Spuy, who had been appointed as a friend of the court to assist Nenembe during the trial, was excused by Schoeman.

Webber was attacked in her Needham Street, Kabega Park, home on August 20 2015, and strangled to death.

According to Mengo, during his earlier testimony, Nenembe had hatched the plan to rob the property, where Mengo had previously done odd jobs.

Nenembe had also orchestrated the murder, Mengo said.

Eight days after the murder, Mengo handed himself over to police and gave them a full confession statement.

He later said he had confessed under duress, but after a trial within a trial was held the confession was accepted by the court as evidence 

The day after his arrest, Mengo pointed out the homes of Nenembe and Ngqanda to police, where items from the Needham Street property were found.

The case was postponed to September 7.

Nenembe was in November 2017 found guilty of the murder of Uitenhage schoolteacher Jayde Panayiotou.

Nenembe, along with Panayiotou’s husband, Christopher, were sentenced to life in prison.

- HeraldLIVE