Durban — Mangosuthu University of Technology final-year electrical engineering student Xolile Mbatha at one point managed to take the knife and stab her boyfriend.
This was what Bongani Sanele Mlambo, 28, charged with Mbatha’s murder, told the Durban High Court in his plea read out by his defence attorney, SB Madondo.
Mlambo on Wednesday pleaded guilty to the July murder.
However, proceedings were cut short as Judge Sharmaine Balton ordered that the matter be adjourned to a later date as Mlambo had not had sight of the post-mortem report, with only the post-mortem certificate filed.
State advocate SN Mbokazi said the post-mortem report had not been filed as the matter was fairly new, adding that maybe it would be ready next week.
Before the matter was adjourned the court heard how Mlambo and Mbatha were in a relationship after having connected on Facebook in 2018.
He said the following year they set up to meet face to face and they did so at MUT.
“Our love relationship was blossoming and going well until 2021 when the deceased started communicating (sending messages) with a male fellow congregant, that’s when the problem started. When I asked the deceased about this she said the man was sending her Bible verses.”
Mlambo said when he saw the messages on Mbatha’s phone he saw that the man was “proposing love” to her.
He said when he confronted the man he did not deny what was happening and apologised saying it would stop, however it did not.
Mlambo said he then reported the matter to the church elders, and at a meeting the fellow congregant also admitted what was happening and apologised, adding it would stop.
“The communication continued, this was putting strain on the relationship. In July 2022 the deceased told me she was pregnant with twins.”
He said he was excited by the news, however following this Mbatha was not taking his calls, and a few days after this she contacted him telling him she had a miscarriage.
Mlambo said he understood that Mbatha needed his support through the loss they had experienced and on July 30 went to check on her at MUT’s outsourced residence in Mahatma Gandhi Road, Ark Royal Residence, where she lived.
“When there, she said she had been phoning me and I explained I had left my phone in uMlazi. She started shouting, she told me never to come there. I understood that she was emotional and angry so I gave her space.”
The next day, the day Mbatha died, Mlambo went back to his girlfriend’s place and found her in the bathroom, but when he tried to open the door to get in, she pushed it in an attempt to stop him.
He said inside the bathroom Mbatha questioned why he was there as she had told him never to return.
“She was shouting and while we were arguing her friend came in asking why I was being a nuisance as Mbatha no longer wanted me … I picked up a knife on top of a table, she was fighting, at some point she repossessed the knife and stabbed me, this made me angry. When I had the knife I stabbed her multiple times. I then took a taxi to uMlazi, once there I took a taxi going home to Hluhluwe.”
Mlambo handed himself over to the police on September 20.
Daily News