S v Singo

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: E M Grosskopf JA, Nienaber JA and Van Coller AJA
• Judgment Date: 27 November 1992
• Citation: 1993 (2) SA 765 (A)
• Hearing Date: 23 November 1992
• Court: Appellate Division

E M Grosskopf, JA.:

A The appellant was convicted in the Supreme Court of Venda of murder by Van der Walt J and assessors and sentenced to five years' imprisonment of which two years were conditionally suspended. With the leave of the trial Judge he now appeals only against his conviction. The point on which leave was granted was a limited, although important, B one and by agreement between the parties only that part of the record necessary for the determination of the issue on appeal was filed. In effect the parties placed a stated case before us. The parties are to be highly commended for thus cutting down costs and generally facilitating the determination of the matter.

C The appellant was one of seven accused. However, before the commencement of the trial, accused No 5 absconded and the charge against him was provisionally withdrawn. The trial proceeded against the remaining six, although they retained their original numbering. The appellant was accused No 4.

In view of the form which this appeal took it will be convenient to D quote the judgment of the trial Court in extenso. The judgment sets out the facts as follows:

'The events relevant to the case before us are to a large extent common cause and the following history appears to us to be not in dispute. The accused are all young men. The deceased, the witnesses as well as other characters in the drama are all inhabitants of Murangonni residential area E and appear to be known to each other to a greater or lesser extent. Most of the accused were secondary scholars at a local school. Some time before the fateful event, a female scholar fell unconscious on the sports ground, and on 25 May she again had an attack of some kind in the class room. What exactly her infirmity was does not appear from the evidence, but it seems F likely that she suffered epileptic fits. After she was taken from school on the last mentioned day, she was taken to the local headman's kraal. She was taken there apparently by one or more of the teachers and by her grandfather, one Ben. It is not exactly clear when this happened, but it is fairly clear and not disputed that she had at some stage named three elderly women, one of whom was the deceased, as being responsible for her condition in the sense that they bewitched her. It was apparently as a result of these allegations by the girl that the matter was reported to G the headman. It also seems fairly clear that she was not regarded as sane at that stage when she was taken to the headman's kraal, bound.

The headman then summoned a tribal meeting at his kraal by messenger and also sent a posse or posses of what were called young men to fetch the three alleged culprits. One of them, one Nyadzanga, was working in the fields and only returned home at or after dusk. Soon after her return she was fetched by a group of youngsters. Her two daughters were also taken H along . . . .

When the group arrived at the chief's kraal with her, there was a large number of people, young and old, present. They were gathered in a circle around the fire and Nyadzanga was placed in the middle of the circle where she found the deceased as well as another old woman, one Masindi. It appears that certain information had been conveyed to the chief by a teacher and the girl's grandfather, Ben. On account of this, the headman I instructed the three women to, as it was stated, "unbewitch the girl". The three women's attitude was one of denial that they were responsible for her condition and the deceased suggested that money be obtained, and a witchdoctor or inyanga be consulted in order to establish who was responsible for the girl's condition. This request was refused because the headman stated that the girl could speak for herself. The girl's hands were then unbound and she accused the three old women of having bewitched J her. She also gave some,

E M Grosskopf JA

A not very clear, explanation of the manner in which she was bewitched, alleging that Nyadzanga was calling her with a small horn to work for her grandfather. There was also an allegation by somebody else, I think it was by Ben, the girl's grandfather, that Nyadzanga had on a previous occasion bewitched a son or a relative of his who was allegedly by then working in Louis Trichardt as a Zombie. Things then got out of hand with the girl B attacking Nyadzanga, hitting her, also striking her with a stone and attempting to place a tyre of a vehicle, which conveniently was on the scene, over her body. It is also clear that the gathered crowd then got excited, they stood up and there was a lot of noise according to the evidence. The headman then defused the immediate situation by ordering the three alleged witches into his cooking hut and by chasing the crowd away, waving a kierie and with the aid of his dogs. There is some evidence, to C which I will refer later, which seems to indicate that the headman, in doing what he did, did not act with unselfish motives or basically in the interest of the three old women. The crowd then dispersed and there is some evidence that at least some of them were not satisfied with the course things took. A large section of the crowd, which appears to have consisted mainly of young people, left the meeting place along a footpath which initially leads roughly west and then towards the south where it D joins a major road.

They then proceeded towards the east along this road. At a stage they were caught up by accused No 7 who is the headman's son, travelling on a motor cycle. He then informed the crowd that the three women had been released. According to the evidence he said: "We have released those women." He further told them that his father was afraid that, if the women E were killed at his kraal, the police would also have him arrested. Accused No 7 proceeded to say that the women had now been released and that they were somewhere towards the front of the mob. . . .

Immediately after accused No 7's report to the crowd they started running along the road towards the direction in which the three women were stated to be. Somewhere towards the east of where they were, another F footpath also leading from the chief's kraal joins the major road. The deceased came along this footpath and landed herself amongst the charging crowd which in their charge got separated into a rear-end and advance guard.

The crowd then converged upon her and assaulted her, inter alia, by using stones and other instruments such as sticks. After she was assaulted to the extent that she remained lying on the ground, the mob slowly G started to disperse moving further along the road towards the west, the direction in which they were originally proceeding. When the mob or at least some of them were 40-50 yards or metres away, the deceased got up and followed the mob. Members of the mob, apparently on seeing her getting up, stopped and parted towards both sides of the road. Indications are that the deceased was then already seriously injured and she most probably did not realise that she was proceeding right into...