Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Nicholas Ndou has granted bail to MDC–T Ward 29 councillor, Monica Lubimbi, who is being jointly charged with seven other residents for the murder of an Emakhandeni man following a house ownership wrangle.
Lubimbi (60) was on Monday granted $300 bail, but her alleged accomplices were further remanded in custody after their bail application was turned down.
The councillor is alleged to have connived with Pisi Nxumalo (56), Nkosinathi Khumalo (27), Ntando Moyo (21), Opah Moyo (59), Busani Sibanda (30), Xolani Ncube (30) and Hlonipani Mugayo (29) to kill Mgoli Majola, who was embroiled in a long-standing house wrangle with one of the accused men.
The State alleges Lubimbi agreed to participate in the alleged crime on condition she would be given the deceased’s brains, tongue, lips, nose and fingers for ritual purposes.
The eight have not been formally charged with murder, but their statements were confirmed last week when they denied the charge before Bulawayo provincial magistrate Abednico Ndebele.
The case has been remanded to next Tuesday. Charges against them are that Khumalo and the now deceased, Majola, had a seven-year-old wrangle over a house in Emakhandeni suburb. The row allegedly started in 2004 and had been dragging on at the High Court without a solution in sight.
Khumalo allegedly roped in Lubimbi, Nxumalo and Sibanda and Zibusiso Mnkandla, but failed to have the matter resolved.
They later allegedly connived to kill Majola and repossess the house.
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The accused allegedly kidnapped Majola on July 27 and struck him with a machete, leaving him dead in a bushy area in Richmond suburb.
The following day, Khumalo and Mugayo allegedly returned to the scene and removed Majola’s tongue, brains, fingers, lips and nose and wrapped them in a plastic bag and gave them to Lubimbi at her house in Magwegwe North.
Majola’s body was later discovered by women who were fetching firewood.
Police investigations led to the eight’s arrest.
