Former Sizok’thola presenter Xolani Khumalo and his crew allegedly killed a Congolese national in a drug raid that went awry.
Khumalo and his crew continue to swoop on suspected drug dealers after being fired by the Moja Love channel, which owns the drug-busting show.
They allegedly kicked and stomped on Heriter Abuba after they raided a Congolese nightclub in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, on suspicion that it was a throughfare of drug merchants.
Speaking to Sunday World, Abuba’s brother, John Wembo, said Khumalo and his crew, accompanied by the police, descended on the Y2K nightclub on March 20 and parked their vehicles outside the premises.
Some of the crew members ordered the patrons to lie down, while others blitzed into the watering hole and demanded drugs. He said during the squabble, his brother, who was not aware of what was happening, arrived.
Wembo said Khumalo and his crew, who were wearing big boots and carrying guns, ordered his brother to lie down.
He said one of the crew members kicked his brother in the abdomen, and he fell to the ground.
“My brother started bleeding profusely while the other crew members joined in and started stomping on him,” said the distraught Wembo.
After stomping on him, said Wembo, the crew asked Abuba to stand up, and when he couldn’t, they lifted him and sat him on a chair.
“After a while, my brother asked the guys to allow him to go pee, and when they allowed him, he stood up but collapsed,” he said.
Wembo said that sensing that his brother was losing his life, Khumalo and his companions called an ambulance, which arrived and ferried him to a public hospital in Kempton Park.
He said when they arrived, the staff at the hospital said his brother needed serious medical attention as he had sustained serious injuries and transferred him to Tembisa Hospital.
“Unfortunately, my brother passed on after being admitted to the hospital,” he said.
Wembo retrieved Abuba’s body from Tembisa Hospital and transported it to the Germiston mortuary for a postmortem.
He said Abuba, who was a delivery man, was buried yesterday in Kempton Park.
Abuba is survived by his wife and two young children.
“I don’t know how his young family will survive without him. He did not deserve to die this way; unfortunately, this is how foreign nationals are treated in South Africa, and we have no recourse,” he said, fighting back tears.
Abuba’s death comes hardly three months after a Tembisa man alleged that Khumalo followed him to his home and shot him in the arm after spraying his vehicle with a hail of bullets in the murky streets of the township earlier on New Year’s Eve in Motaung section.
According to a short police statement, which we have seen, the victim, Xolani Shabangu, said he was driving on a street in the section when a silver Ford Ranger, whose registration number he didn’t capture, followed him home.
He said he sped off, with the bakkie in hot pursuit.
During the speed chase, the occupants of the bakkie fired a hail of bullets at him. “He then alleged that he drove until he got to his place of residence and stopped by the drive-away. And when he got out of the vehicle, two occupants got out of the Ford Ranger and shot him in the right arm,” read the statement.
He said he was able to recognise Khumalo from the two armed men. Shabangu opened a case of attempted murder against Khumalo at Tembisa police station.
After opening the case, the detectives investigating the case, mistakenly went to the house of the new Sizok’thola presenter, Xolani Maphanga, where they left a note for him to come to the cop shop after not finding him at home.
The police officers ordered that he ask for a detective Kgomo in connection with the case on arrival at the police station.
When Maphanga arrived there, the police wanted to arrest him for attempted murder, but Maphanga put up a fight, telling them that he had nothing to do with the matter and that they got the wrong man.
On further investigation, the police discovered that it was in fact Khumalo who allegedly shot Shabangu and not Maphanga, as they thought.
Sunday World understands that Shabangu withdrew the matter after reaching an out-of-court settlement agreement with Khumalo.
This would have exacerbated Khumalo’s woes as he is attending trial for the murder of an East Rand man, Robert Valerie.
Valerie died when a Sizok’thola crew, allegedly led by Khumalo, descended on his home and interrogated him about his alleged drug-dealing in July last year.
Khumalo is also facing two more charges of malicious dama-ge to property and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Gauteng police spokesperson Mavela Masondo confirmed that police are investigating a case of murder.
“A case of murder and a case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm have been opened at Kempton Park Police Station and transferred to Ipid for further investigation, “he said.
