The families of five police officers who were murdered more than six years ago at the Ngcobo police station have finally seen justice for their relatives.
Four members of the infamous Mancoba Seven Angels Ministries church in the Eastern Cape have been given five life sentences each for the murders of the five police officers.
The sentences were handed down by the Mthatha High Court on Wednesday.
They were given an additional 155 and 185 years in jail for a series of robberies. These included attempting to rob a bank and other aggravating circumstances.
Well executed plan to rob and kill
Andani Monco, 36, Kwanele Ndlwana, 28, Siphosomzi Tshefu, 29 and Phumzile Mhlatywa, 51, murdered the cops in February 2018. The fifth accused, Siphesihle Tatsi, who was only 19 years old during the attack, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
Before attacking the police station, the convicted murderers first went to Butterworth. There, they robbed a police officer who was directing traffic and forcefully took his firearm. This was in November 2017.
Two weeks later, the same group went to Cala town, where they took a gun from an off-duty police officer at gunpoint.
“Before the Ngcobo attack observed the movements of Ngcobo police and planned how to attack them. The group included some members of the cult who were killed during a shootout with police during their arrest,” said NPA spokesperson, Luxolo Tyali.
Assigned different roles among themselves
Tyali added that the group assigned roles to each other. And Mhlatywa’s role was to drive to Ngcobo town. He was to commit a traffic offence that would attract the attention of the police.
“When the police were attending to that, he would drive away and stop where his accomplices were hiding. They would be armed with the firearms they robbed earlier. As planned, on the fateful night, two on-duty police officers fell for the trap. They were ambushed on the R61 road near Nyanga High School and killed.”
After killing the two officers, the group drove the police van to Ngcobo Police Station. There they shot and killed two more police officers. A data typist who was under the impression that their colleagues were driving, ran.
The assailants raided the safe and took more firearms and bulletproof vests.
Another police van that was on patrol duty returned to the police station. The officers were shot at and also robbed of their firearms by the bandits. They went on to break into Capitec Bank, where they failed to break the safe.
Ambushed police officers
Police officers from the neighbouring Dalasile Police Station heard over the radio about the attack on Ngcobo Police Station. They drove to Ngcobo town to investigate. And they also came under attack from the now heavily armed group.
“The police van was found dumped in a ditch around Khanya village the following day. Intense police investigations led to the arrest of the men inside the cult’s compound and the Mancoba homestead.”
They abandoned bail and chose to conduct their defence during the trial. The men stated that it was against their religious beliefs to be represented by attorneys.
That decision proved to be a delay for the trial. This as the presiding judge had to slowly assist the accused as they did not have a legal background.
Convicts represented themselves in court
During the trial, one of the co-accused, Siphesihle Tatsi, who was only 19 years old during the attack, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to an effective 18-year direct imprisonment term. This was because some counts in his collective 241 years sentence were ordered to run concurrently.
All the effective sentences for each of them were ordered to run concurrently with the five life sentences.
