MBOMBELA- Emotions ran high during the trial of the slain Mazibuko sisters in the Mpumalanga High Court on Wednesday.
Hlabirwa Rassie Nkuna’s (37) trial began on Monday and was found guilty on two counts of murder after he fatally shot the siblings in May last year.
Pretty Mazibuko (46)was Hlabirwa’s girlfriend and Marcia Mazibuko (41), a police officer, was Pretty’s younger sister.
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Nkuna pleaded guilty to both counts and apologized to the family in court. However, when Prosecutor Adv Zweletu Mata read out the victim impact statements from the late sisters’ family members, it seemed they were taken aback.
Some members in the gallery comforted their mother, Samariya Mazibuko who cried together with Pretty’s daughter, Nomonde Khumalo.
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Nomonde described her mother as a quiet person who loved them with her younger brother. She said she was very close to her. “After hearing that my mother got shot, I prayed and wished that she pulls through. I even wished that the bullet crippled her. That is how much I wanted her to be alive. She worked hard for us and made sure that we had everything we needed. I felt powerless, knowing that I no longer had a mother. Identifying her body was the hardest thing and seeing her lying there – my whole body went numb,” reads the statement.
The Mazibuko sisters’ death did also affect their mother, health-wise, who runs her business. She said she does not think she could ever feel any other pain in this world than that if seeing her daughters lying in a pool of blood. Hlabirwa was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday.
