CAPE TIMES
Gcinikhaya Makoma consults with his advocate Ellen Fitz-Patrick in the Western Cape High Court. He and eight of his co-accused were convicted of a host of charges relating to a cash van heist in Parow in 2007. Picture: MATTHEW JORDAAN
Gcinikhaya Makoma evaded a 23-year jail sentence when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted him amnesty for the 1993 St James Church massacre. Now, he faces life in prison.
He was convicted, along with eight other men, of a string of charges relating to a cash van heist in Parow in 2007.
After a marathon trial in the Western Cape High Court, Makoma was found guilty of 10 charges – including murder, robbery and five counts of attempted murder – on Tuesday.
Makoma was one of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army cadres who attacked the Kenilworth church in 1993, killing 11 people and wounding dozens more. He was 17 at the time.
Makoma was sentenced to 23 years behind bars for his role in the massacre; however, he was granted amnesty after serving five-and-a-half years of his sentence.
He now faces imprisonment along with his co-accused Lunga Luke, Thobela Nono, Zamekile Ngqonga, Thando Mafalala, Thobile Pezisa, Andile Ndandani, Zukile Netti and Thembikile Tikipini, who were convicted of similar charges.
One of the men, Celani Twazi, was acquitted of all the charges. Justice Patrick Gamble’s judgment brought the case to near finality after it ran for a lengthy 161 court days, which included five “trials-within-trials”. His judgment alone took nine days to read into the record.
And one of the accused did not live long enough to see the end of the trial. Mzukisi Malamela died in October, apparently of malaria.
Gamble found that the nine other men had acted in common purpose in their attack on the cash van in Parow on December 3, 2007.
It was midday, and the attack, according to Gamble, was executed “with paramilitary precision”.
Almost a dozen men armed with automatic rifles, including AK-47s, cornered the van with cars they had hijacked at gunpoint just days before, then fired at the windscreen until it shattered.
A couple of them stood on car bonnets to get a better vantage point.
They shot and killed the driver, while the other two men in the van scrambled for cover.
Two constables – Christopher Kleinsmith and Frederick van der Poel – just happened to drive by during a patrol when they came across the violent scene.
A shoot-out ensued.
Then, before they could get to the money, the men made their getaway, some in a stolen white Ford and more in a VW Golf, also stolen.
They split up, with the Golf heading towards the Florida Park sports ground. The men abandoned the car and sought refuge in a nearby crèche.
One of them hid in a cupboard and another was caught in the crèche’s freezer. In total, seven of them, including the acquitted Twazi, were arrested at the crèche.
Meanwhile, just a couple of kilometres away, the rest of the robbers in the Ford also abandoned their vehicle and hijacked a taxi in Uitsig.
They also dumped the taxi before making an escape, but evidence linked them to the robbery and they were arrested in the weeks following the incident.
Several of the men – Makoma, Ndandani, Netti, Tikipini and Malamela – made confessions.A number of them also claimed that they had been victims of police brutality.
Makoma claimed that he was tortured by police officers in an attempt to secure a confession, which had infringed his trial rights.
But, Judge Gamble found that his allegations were “not sustainable” and, as such, it did not compromise the admissibility of his confession.
It is not yet certain whether Makoma’s involvement in the St James Church massacre – his only previous conviction – will affect his sentence for the heist.
His advocate, Ellen Fitz-Patrick, argued that the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act (also known as the TRC Act) stated that someone who was granted amnesty for a political crime should have their record expunged from all official documents so that it was “deemed not to have taken place”.
However, State advocate Greg Wolmarans said that the State would seek to have this conviction admitted during sentencing proceedings.
There had been a ruling in the Supreme Court of Appeal in which Robert McBride had sued The Citizen newspaper for calling him a “killer”.
This was even though he had been granted amnesty for the bombing of Magoo’s Bar on Durban’s Marine Parade in Durban in 1986 as an Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier. – Cape Times
leila.samodien@inl.co.za
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St James killer faces life in jail