Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Murdered Khayelitsha: Family say justice system failed them

03/02/2023

Murdered Khayelitsha: Family say justice system failed themThe man accused of fatally stabbing Phelokazi Mqathanya has been found not guilty by the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court.

by Mambaonline.com

03-02-2023 09:29

in LGBTQIA+

Openly lesbian Phelokazi Mqathanya, who trained as a chef, was stabbed to death in a suspected hate crime in May 2021 via Mambaonline

The man accused of fatally stabbing Phelokazi Mqathanya has been found not guilty by the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court.

The Magistrate found that the State did not present sufficient evidence to convict the accused of the murder.

Mqathanya was lesbian and her family believe her murder was a hate crime.

This news came as a shock to her family and activists who for months had been fighting for justice after her murder.

The man accused of fatally stabbing a Khayelitsha woman has been found not guilty by the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court.

--

This news came as a shock to her family and activists who for months had been fighting for justice for Phelokazi Mqathanya's murder.

Mqathanya, who lived in Site C in Khayelitsha, was stabbed to death on 2 May 2021. She was lesbian and her relatives and activists believe her murder was a hate crime.

The accused, Bongani Ngadleka, was arrested soon after the murder. But after several delays in the investigations and four court postponements, the case was removed from the court roll on 14 December 2021.

--

ALSO READ: New Johannesburg mayor is from openly queerphobic party

The case was brought back to court on 5 May 2022 following action by activists at Free Gender.

In October 2022, the case was again postponed because the prosecutors were not in court and the matter was remanded for trial in January 2023 at a hearing later that month.

--

The trial was expected to start on 18 January, but the accused was not at court due to transport issues at Pollsmoor Prison. This happened again on 19 January. This case has been postponed 15 times since May 2022.

On Friday 27 January, Ngadleka was found not guilty on the charge of murder. The magistrate found the case had failed to present sufficient evidence.

On Thursday 26 January, state witness Abongile Ngalo told the court that the night Mqathanya was stabbed, he and his friends were drinking at his house when she joined them with three other girls. Phelokazi was my friend, he said.

Her family believe her murder was a hate crime. Members of Free Gender protested at Khayelitsha Remembrance Square outside the magistrate's court in September. (Photo: Mary-Anne Gontsana) via Mambaonline

Ngalo said that the accused had arrived about 20 minutes after Mqathanya and her friends, who had been sitting in the kitchen area of the house.

Bongani wasn't a friend, but I knew him from [the community]. He started dancing but we never paid much attention to him. At one point I saw him going to the kitchen but from where I was sitting, I didn't see if he had spoken to Phelokazi and her friends. While he was in the kitchen I didn't hear any commotion or arguments. After about 10 minutes I saw him leave the house, he said.

Ngalo said Mqathanya had gone outside, apparently to get a lighter for her cigarettes. About 20 minutes later he went out to buy more alcohol and that's when he saw her lifeless body lying outside on the corner of his home.

Ngalo testified that he did not see Ngadleka or anyone else at the scene.

Ngadleka's legal aid lawyer argued that the State's witness did not place his client at the crime scene nor did he see any communication happen between his client and the deceased.

The lawyer said it was unfortunate and unfair for Ngadleka to be behind bars when there was no evidence proving that he had committed the crime.

It was revealed in court that the state was meant to call a second witness to testify, but had not been able to find her.

The investigating officer has on numerous occasions visited the second witness's home but she was not there. The investigating officer was later told by the witness's mother that she is working on a farm in Malmesbury but her mother didn't know which farm, the prosecutor told the court. It was alleged that this was the witness who had seen the accused leaving the crime scene.

The magistrate ruled that the State had failed to produce tangible evidence that Ngadleka had killed Mqathanya. There is absolutely no evidence linking the accused to the offence, said the magistrate.

After the verdict, Free Gender's Funeka Soldaat said, This case was handled badly from the beginning which is why we are in this situation. Even at the last minute, we were the ones who had to go look for witnesses for this case. It is a very painful thing.

Phumeza Ndlwana, Mqathanya's sister, said, As a family we are not at peace. But then again that's how the South African justice system is. We will never be at peace.

I blame the police because they handled this case badly from the start. For instance, when we went to identify my sister's body, we were given her bloody clothes in a plastic bag and told to take them to the investigating officer at the police station. Weren't they meant to retrieve the clothes as evidence?

We went to the police station numerous times before going to the Eastern Cape for Phelokazi's funeral and each time we'd go we would be told that the investigating officer is not there, said Ndlwana.

Article by Mary-Anne Gontsana

This article was initially published on MAMBAonlie.com

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ARTICLES BY Mambaonline.com

Financial freedom helps to reduce the burden of living from paycheck to paycheck. Read more here!
LINK: https://www.thesouthafrican.com/culture/lgbtqia/murdered-khayelitsha-f...
See more stories from thesouthafrican

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

21/07/2026

High Interest, limited resources: AI in Mongolia's newsrooms

New research involving a cross-section of Mongolias independent media landscape finds enthusiasm for AI as a tool to improve efficiency, sustainability and resi...

21/07/2026

FIFA World Cup 2026: The Firsts, Breakthroughs, and Lasting Legacies

With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...

21/07/2026

NHL Launches Centralized Production Operation for Regional Broadcasts; Four Teams Aboard To Start

In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...

21/07/2026

With Boland Monitors, NEPs PGA TOUR Unit Ready for Future

When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...

21/07/2026

elysia Channex Studio now available

High-end analogue channel strip boasts plug-in recall Originally revealed as a prototype back at NAMM 2024, the Channex Studio channel strip represented a b...

21/07/2026

Musik Hack announce HyFi mastering platform

Relies on same DSP as plug-in range Musik Hack's line-up has been influenced heavily by founder Stan Greene's work as a mixing engineer, and their M...

21/07/2026

Dirty Boy Jr. Series from Warm Audio

Official collaboration with boutique builder Dirty Boy Pedals Warm Audio have just announced the launch of a new guitar pedal range created in collaboration...

21/07/2026

SBS scores biggest ever FIFA World Cup Reach as Spain triumph in the final

SBS scores biggest ever FIFA World Cup Reach as Spain triumph in the final 21 July, 2026 Media releases Spain v Argentina attracted a Total TV reach of al...

21/07/2026

Rohde & Schwarz showcases broad range of EMC test solutions at EMC+SIPI 2026 in Dallas, Texas

Rohde & Schwarz showcases broad range of EMC test solutions at EMC SIPI 2026 in ...

21/07/2026

TVP Claims Top Spot as the World Cup and the Opole Music Festival Drive June Viewership in Poland

Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...

21/07/2026

Savannah Bananas Tap Calrec to Expand Banana Ball TV Coverage

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

Where Growth Takes Root Viaccess-Orca Showcases the Found...

Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...

21/07/2026

Tuxera breaks performance ceilings and brings SMB/NFS mul...

Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...

21/07/2026

COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package

COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package Brie Clayton July 21, 2026 0 Comments HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...

21/07/2026

Cinegy directly addresses the real issues of software-def...

Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...

21/07/2026

Calrec brings leading audio solutions and long term busin...

Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47 Beyond bigger For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...

21/07/2026

Pebble takes the next step towards the future of media de...

Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will discuss its future-facing developments for the new generation of medi...

21/07/2026

nxtedition Brings Production, AI and Automation Together...

nxtedition returns to IBC2026 with its consolidated production platform, showing how scripting, editing, graphics, AI-assisted tools and automation can work wit...

21/07/2026

Big Blue Marble brings C2PA Content Credentials to Cloud...

C2PA content signing helps broadcasters, public institutions, and publishers give audiences a verifiable record of where their video content came from and how i...

21/07/2026

HDHomeRun Enables Operation During Internet Outages

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

Calif. Federal Judge Pauses Paramount-WBD Merger

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

AWARN Rebuts Weigel Claims of 3.0 EAS Problems

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for August Open Meeting

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

VIDA Introduces QC Manager for Collaborative Quality Cont...

New capability centralizes collaboration, feedback, security and status tracking within VIDA, providing a structured, auditable approach to master quality contr...

21/07/2026

Lightcraft Launches Exclusive Spark Story Beta for Filmmakers and Creators at SIGGRAPH 2026

Lightcraft Launches Exclusive Spark Story Beta for Filmmakers and Creators at SI...

21/07/2026

Indie Road Movie Where in the Hell Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Indie Road Movie Where in the Hell Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 4K Brie Clayton July 20, 2026 0 Comments Colorist blends vintage film looks to shape...

21/07/2026

Which USS Defiant Pulse Phaser effect is better?

Which USS Defiant Pulse Phaser effect is better? Graham Quince July 20, 2026 0 Comments Aargh, ever since @DarkRavenProductions posted a comment ask...

21/07/2026

X-Rite Pantone and NIFT Partner to Build Color Management Skills for India's Fashion and Textile Workforce

X-Rite Pantone and NIFT Partner to Build Color Management Skills for India's...

21/07/2026

Bluepeak Taps Harmonic to Speed Up Fiber Rollout and Expand into MDUs

Harmonics cOS Virtualized Broadband Platform and Pearl Remote OLTs Enable Flexible PON Migration, While SeaStar Optical Node Powers Cost-Effective Multi-Gigabit...

21/07/2026

From Lens to Pixel: Why Connected Workflows Are the Future of Live Venue Production

Every live event starts with a defining moment. A camera captures the game-winni...

21/07/2026

Built for Vera Rubin, NVIDIA Spectrum-6 Arrives in Gigascale AI Factories

AI has entered the gigascale era. The world's most advanced AI factories are bringing together hundreds of thousands of GPUs and CPUs to train frontier mod...

21/07/2026

NVIDIA Vera Rubin Driving Performance Per Watt, Lowest Token Cost for Partners Worldwide

NVIDIA Vera Rubin is here, and it's going gigascale. Vera Rubin NVL72 produ...

21/07/2026

RT announces biggest ever year for new drama

160 hours of Irish storytelling for 2026 KIN and The Walsh Sisters return RT has today unveiled its most ambitious drama slate ever, with a record-breakin...

20/07/2026

SVG All-Stars: Rob Coons, Senior Director, StudentU, Big Ten Network

The former Northwestern broadcast-operations leader is helping train the next generation of live-sports-production talent across the Big Ten The sports-product...

20/07/2026

Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Stacey Lee, the Filmmaker Behind Murder 101

By Lucy Spicer One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. Whi...

20/07/2026

Graph Tech Guitar Labs open UK Online Store

Product range now readily available in the UK Graph Tech Guitar Labs have just announced the launch of a new UK Online Store that makes it quicker and easie...

20/07/2026

Audeze launch the Maxwell 2 ANC

Popular headset gains active noise cancellation The Maxwell headet was Audeze's first foray into the gaming world, and thanks to its Dolby Atmos compati...

20/07/2026

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) Call for Public Screening funding applications for Cycle 1, 2026/27 financial year is Open

The NFVF, an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, has released t...

20/07/2026

Telemundo Inks Another Major U.S. Spanish-Language Soccer Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

20/07/2026

HDHomeRun Enables Operation During An Internet Outage

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

20/07/2026

Starfish highlights flexible, scalable transport stream p...

Starfish Technologies will use IBC2026 to showcase the flexibility of its transport stream processing software, including the latest versions of TS Splicer (Win...

20/07/2026

Bitfocus makes the connections at IBC2026

Bitfocus, the specialist in media control and monitoring, will show at IBC2026 (Elgato stand 8.D31, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) how its Buttons control la...

20/07/2026

Mediagenix Introduces Trusted Agentic AI Operating Model...

Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced new AI capabilities that e...

20/07/2026

Big Blue Marble Cloud DRM nominated for Streaming Media R...

Big Blue Marble's Cloud DRM has been nominated in the DRM/Content Protection category of the 2026 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards. Only four pro...

20/07/2026

Sky brings free global roaming to millions of loyal customers when they choose Sky Mobile

Monday 20 July 2026 Sky brings free global roaming to millions of loyal custome...

20/07/2026

Red Seat Ventures Announces Introduction of Premium Creator and Podcast Communities to Amazon DSP

Red Seat Ventures Announces Introduction of Premium Creator and Podcast Communit...