Ntuthuko Shoba found guilty of premeditated murder

Shoba is said to have orchestrated her murder.

The 28-year-old was found hanging from a tree in Durban Deep in Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg.

She was eight months pregnant with Shoba's child.

Muzikayise Malepane pleaded guilty to killing her in June 2020. 

Malepane turned state witness and was sentenced to 20 years for the murder. He told the court he was hired by Shoba to kill Pule.

The High Court in Johannesburg heard that Malepane was a neighbour of Shoba's friend.

During the trial, the court heard Shoba had made phone calls to and visited Malepane before Pule's murder.

Shoba told court that Malepane had been selling cigarettes during the tobacco ban at the beginning of the hard lockdown.

He claimed he had met and spoken with him because he wanted to buy cigarettes.

In his judgement, Acting judge Stuart Wilson said Shoba's explanation of his dealings with Malepane may safely be rejected as false. 

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"It is denied by two witnesses whose credibility and reliability have never been challenged - and by Mr Malepane himself. I do not accept that Mr Shoba's visits and telephone calls were about the purchase of cigarettes because I do not accept that Mr Malepane ever sold them. That begs the question of what Mr Shoba's visits were really about."

"Once I have rejected Mr Shoba evidence that they were about cigarettes, there is no evidence before me that they were about anything other than arranging Miss Pule's death," Wilson said.

The judge found that because Malepane did not know Pule, he had no obvious motive or opportunity to kill her other than those Shoba gave him. 

He said having treated Malepane's evidence with the requisite caution, he saw no alternative but to accept that the material core of Malepane's evidence is clear and satisfactory in every material respect.

Shoba has been acquitted on a count of obstructing justice.

Following the verdict, Judge Wilson told Shoba he would hear arguments in mitigation and aggravation of his sentence on the 10th of May.

He will remain in custody until sentencing.