Durban — The 39-year-old self-employed man on trial for the alleged murder of his 49-year-old wife – whom he allegedly stabbed more than ten times – said it never crossed his mind to run away after overpowering the knife-wielding woman.
“Do you recall testifying that you pushed the victim on to the bed and the knife fell on her thighs, can I accept that at that stage you had overpowered her with some distance between you and her … You could have run away and not stabbed her,” Judge Thoba Poyo-Dlwati asked Sibusiso Bongekhaya Mvubu.
He is on trial in the Durban High Court for the murder of Philisiwe Mvubu whom he is alleged to have stabbed and left in their locked house. He then hitch-hiked to Estcourt to his sister’s home.
Throughout the trial Mvubu has maintained that he stabbed his wife once in the neck and she was accidentally stabbed again as she fell on the knife he was carrying.
Before the alleged murder on 1 July last year, police had accompanied Philisiwe to hand over a protection order to her husband as he had allegedly wanted to pour boiling water on her.
On Friday, Judge Poyo-Dlwati asked Mvubu questions for clarity ahead of delivering judgment on Monday. She probed Mvubu on the time he left his dead wife locked in the house.
“When you left and locked the house, did you entertain the idea that the deceased might be dead … if you did not think she was dead and you left the house locked, that means there’s nothing you did to try to get her assistance.”
Mvubu told the judge that he had been confused at that time and he did not think about whether his wife was dead or not. He agreed with the judge that no one had entered the house after he had left Mvubu, but did not agree when Judge Poyo-Dlwati asked if she should accept those other injuries that Philisiwe suffered “were sustained when it was just the two of you in the house”.
Senior State advocate Krishen Shah said the accused had intended to kill his wife.
“This was apparent from the facts, the location, and the severity of her injuries. Not a single stab wound or two, but 13.
“This not counting the blunt force trauma to the head which indicated significant blows, these injuries are not accounted for in the accused’s version.”
Mvubu’s Legal Aid defence attorney, Zeera Fareed, argued that the accused still maintained that the murder had been in self defence and denies abusing his wife.
“Had the victim not pulled out a knife the incident would not have happened … It was not premeditated, it was spur of the moment there was a heated argument.”
Daily News