Alleged sangoma killer in court

A man accused of killing a sangoma who was linked to rituals performed on striking Lonmin mineworkers in Marikana was scheduled to appear in the Bizana Magistrate's Court today.

 

The sangoma, Alton "Ndzabe" Zikhuthele Joja , 69, was shot dead in the Eastern Cape on March 24.

 

Five armed men shot him when he walked up to their vehicle, parked at his home, to ask them what they were looking for.

 

The gunmen fled. Their car was later found abandoned and burnt out with a rifle inside.

 

Lindelani Mkhize, 28, was arrested for the shooting in May. 

 

Joja was to have testified before the Farlam Commission of Inquiry about his role, and that of his sons, in rituals performed on the strikers on a hill near the Lonmin mine in August last year. 

 

The rituals were apparently supposed to make the miners believe they were invisible and invincible in the face of gunfire.

 

The commission, sitting in Centurion, is probing the circumstances of the deaths of 44 people killed during the strike-related violence. 

 

Around 34 striking mineworkers were shot dead by police on August 16. Another 10 people, including two police officers and two security guards were killed in the preceding week.

 

-Sapa