Philemon Lukhele, the man who was accused of being the mastermind behind Hillary Gardee’s murder, is calling for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to apologise to him and rectify its blunder after a known murderer confessed to the crime.
Hillary, the daughter of former EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee, was kidnapped, raped and murdered on April 29 2022 after buying groceries at Spar in Mbombela. She was accompanied by her adopted three-year-old child.
The child was later found unharmed close to their home. However, Gardee’s body was found dumped in a veld five days later. She sustained a bullet wound to the head.
Lukhele and his co-accused Sipho Lawrence Mkatshwa and Mduduzi Gama were arrested and charged with murder, rape, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping and possession of an illegal firearm.
Mkatshwa and Gama are still in custody at Barberton Prison maximum facility in Mpumalanga while Lukhele was released on R20 000 bail in January after spending over seven months in custody.
Lukhele’s release came after he was handed a docket consisting of Rassie Nkuna’s statement in which he confessed that he single-handedly killed Gardee. Nkuna is no new killer, according to media reports. He is a convict out on parole.
He was arrested in August 2022 for killing a woman in Ekurhuleni and dumping her body on a farm.
He is also implicated in the murder of his girlfriend Pretty Nkambule, and her sister.
“The state ruined my life”, these are the words of the disgruntled Lukhele who feels the NPA owes him and his co-accused an apology.
Lukhele told Sunday World he had suffered greatly because of this injustice, adding that the case tarnished his image and impaired his reputation.
“At the time when we were wrongfully linked to Hillary’s murder, the whole world closed in on us and publicly expressed resentment on us. All media houses covered the story, and we were labelled as murderers.
“How could I have done this? I hold a reputation of high standard. I do not have a criminal record and there has never been a single complaint of criminal conduct against me. My reputation was damaged by this,” he said.
The dictum that says bad things happen in threes truly manisfested itself in Lukhele’s life.
He told Sunday World that he lost everything because of the “frivolous case”. Among other assets, Lukhele had three properties in which he housed students from the University of Mpumalanga.
The university terminated his contract and moved all the students out.
In May last year, the ANC chief whip’s office in Mpumalanga suspended Lukhele [in his capacity as senior manager] without pay, stating that the office stands for the protection of women, young girls and boys.
Lukhele’s no work, no pay suspension is set to continue until the conclusion of an internal investigation on his role and participation in the murder of Gardee.
However, that was a heavy blow for him. He said he was struggling to find his footing after failing to honour his financial commitments.
“I spent eight months in prison, I missed my debit orders and could not honour my bills. Any minute I get, I try my best to fix my life. I am currently negotiating with my employer to lift the suspension because the truth is out now. I did not orchestrate Hillary’s murder.”
“I did nothing but I am walking around with a murder charge on my name. Even After Nkuna confessed, I still have not been cleared. This was a mistake of political pressure. The state needs to do the honourable thing, drop the charges and apologise to us.”
Lukhele said what upset him the most was that the police knew he was not the man they were looking for but continued to torture him and his co-accused trying to force a confession.
He said the police also wanted him to implicate EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu as the one behind the murder.
“It was clear that someone was trying to settle a score. They tortured me trying to force me to implicate Floyd but I had not seen Floyd in over four years.
“How and why would I agree to throw him under the bus for something he did not do, even I had never laid my eyes on Hillary.
“The police had no evidence, they said they had found blood in my car and in my house but there was nothing, DNA proved this, cellphone records also proved that I had never been in contact with the deceased. But the pressure got to them and they started fabricating evidence so that the charges stick.”
Lukhele, a single man and a father to an eight-year-old child, expressed concern over his family’s well-being in the midst of all his misfortunes.
He told Sunday World he was grateful that his child was not affected by this. However, it took a toll on his elderly [in her 70s] mother’s health.
Lukhele said this case increased stress levels and affected his mother’s health, without disclosing the nature of the sickness.
He said his mother travelled all the way from her home in Swaziland after she heard about the arrest to ensure that her son was well.
“I told her not to come because of her health but she insisted. She came all the way from Swaziland to see me. She even came to court. She said ‘I want to see my son’.
“When she finally saw me, she cried because she knows me. She knows the boy she raised is a man of integrity,” he said.
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