VICTORIA FALLS — Soccer legend and former Warriors captain Peter Ndlovu yesterday applied for discharge at the close of the State case in which he is being charged with culpable homicide following the death of his brother Adam and a female passenger Nomqhele Tshili in a road accident last December.
Report by Richard Muponde
In an application through his lawyer Harrison Nkomo, Peter said the State had failed to prove he had a case to answer.
“With the evidence brought before this court in this case, a court acting reasonably and carefully could not convict the accused person,” Nkomo said.
“I disagree that there is any evidence to convict the accused person. If it is done it will be an injustice. It is undesirable to put the accused person on his defence to nail himself. You only put an accused person on defence only to explain things and in this case he (Peter) has nothing to explain. It is the prayer that he be found notguilty and discharged at the close of the State case.”
But area prosecutor Namatai Ngwasha said she would tender her response to the application this morning.
Magistrate Archibald Dingana is expected to make a ruling at 11:15am after the response by the State.
Peter is denying charges that he caused the death of Adam and Nomqhele when the BMW X5 vehicle he was driving was involved in an accident at the 417 km peg along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Road.
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The State alleges that Peter failed to negotiate a curve and lost control of the car resulting in the accident, but the soccer legend is denying that, saying the accident was caused by a tyre burst.
Earlier, testifying in court yesterday, a police senior forensic scientist David Zuze observed that the tyres brought to him for forensic examination had no evidence of a tyre burst which Peter claims caused the accident.
Zuze said the tyres had evidence that they were damaged on impact.
“My conclusion is that the physical evidence is systematical to impact concussion of the tyre against a hard object which resulted in deflation,” he said.
“In my opinion, the tyre burst only as a result of the accident and I would disagree if it is said that there was a tyre burst before the accident because on the tyres there is no evidence of a blowout.”
Zuze, however, conceded under cross examination by Nkomo that indeed one of the tyres which was brought for forensic examination by Constable Victor Mavunga, who was the investigating officer in the matter, did not belong to Peter’s car.
This was after Nkomo had produced a report from the Vehicle Inspection Department which showed that tyres which were taken from the wreckage by the police were both Hankook Ventus make, but the make of one of the wheels produced in court yesterday as exhibits was a Continental tyre.
“Yes, I can see that the tyres are different and the Continental one is not what is on the VID report,” Zuze said under cross examination.
“I don’t know where that tyre came from, but the tyres which were brought to me by the forensic liaison officer were a Hankook and a Continental which I have brought before this court.”
The police accident evaluator Constable Lovemore Tipugare testified before the court earlier and his evidence-in-chief corroborated Zuze’s that the accident was not caused by a burst tyre.
“My observation is that the track of the vehicle’s wheels showed that all wheels were intact,” Tipugare said. “I saw the front left wheel’s marks on a tree which the vehicle first hit soon after veering off the road. I concluded that the driver lost control and the vehicle veered off the road. I also observed that the damages which were done to the trees were consistent with (those made by) a high powered vehicle driving at an excessive speed.”
