Internationally acclaimed artist and murder accused Zwelethu Mthethwa is expected to appear in the Western Cape High Court on Friday.
The defence filed an application for a discharge of the criminal charges against him. Mthethwa has been charged with beating and kicking to death 23-year-old sex worker Nokuphila Kumalo in the early hours of April 14, 2013, in Woodstock. CCTV footage captured the attack.
In February, the court heard that Kumalo died from “blunt trauma injury to the trunk”. Senior forensic pathologist Dr Linda Liebenberg compiled two autopsy reports, one soon after the murder, and the second in 2014 after the investigating officer showed her CCTV footage that captured the attack.
Liebenberg said a gross laceration of Kumalo’s liver would have killed her by a “mechanism of blood loss”. This had contributed to her death, but what killed her was “blunt injury to the trunk”.
She told the court she believed Kumalo had been flat on her back as the “chances of stomping causing injury was much higher” and the severity of the tear to the liver “fits better with her on her back lying on a hard surface”.
Mthethwa has pleaded not guilty to the murder and is currently out on bail of R100,000.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
