Shoba tells court he had no motive to kill Pule
Testifying under cross-examination on Wednesday, Shoba was steadfast in his version that Pule's pregnancy was not a motive for him to have her killed.
Shoba is facing charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and defeating the ends of justice for allegedly hiring Muzikayise Malepane to kill Pule.
Pule was eight months pregnant with his child at the time of her death in 2020.
On Wednesday, he continued his testimony under cross examination by state prosecutor, Advocate Faghre Mohammed.
Mohammed laid out Shoba's financial responsibilities which included his grandmother's medical bills, paying for her helper, paying a bond and also paying debt from his business.
Shoba agreed and the prosecutor put to him that as contained in the WhatsApp messages between himself and Pule; the pregnancy added an extra financial burden.
Shoba categorically denied that it was a reason why he decided to have her killed. He told the court Pule gave him five chances to be an absent father but he refused.
He said while he indicated to her that he couldn't afford a R10 000 stroller, a R1000 bathtub and a R600 play mat, he also said he would work harder to maintain his child, so that could not have been a motive to kill her.
Mohammed went to Malepane's testimony that Shoba said he didn't want his fiancé to find out about the pregnancy and that his finance was about to benefit from a trust fund or death policy worth millions.
"I didn't say I don't want her to find out, I said I was procrastinating because she was going through the trauma of losing her mother to cancer.
"That's incorrect, my finance's mother was unemployed from the time I met her,
I think she was unemployed from the 90's. Rosetta and her sister were taking care of her financially so they wouldn't have had any financial gain from her death and she didn't have any life policies," Shoba said.
Mohammed also stated that the fact that he and the fiancé did not have a child, and Pule was now pregnant for the second time and keeping the pregnancy this time, was another motive to kill her.
Shoba ageeed that Pule's pregnancy was unplanned but denies that was motive to kill her.
"In the WhatsApp's I acknowledged that this was my child and I said I'd make sure my child is raised, I could have walked away," he said.
