A man who says he had a brief fling with murder-accused Bulelwa Ndudula, 46, yesterday told a judge she threatened to shoot him dead in 2016 because he was ignoring her phone calls.
East London health department data capturer Ayanda Tuswa, 34, a qualified electrician who did freelance electrical work, yesterday told Judge Igna Stretch in the East London High Court that he had a week-long affair with Ndudula in 2009.
The primary school teacher stands accused of shooting her husband Sakhekile, a senior government official, seven times in their Cambridge West home in September 2016.
He said they had the fling when they were both working as election officers for the Independent Electoral Commission during the election period that year.
Tuswa said he abruptly ended it because he was “uncomfortable” with sneaking out of his home where he lived with his parents in Cambridge every night to spend the night with her. It was a strain to sneak back in during the early hours and then still have to work.
Tuswa said he did not inform Ndudula of his decision because he was embarrassed by their 12-year age difference. “I just ignored her calls and messages and stopped communicating with her, but I did not explicitly tell her that it was over.”
Between March and April 2016, just five months before the gruesome killing of Ndudula’s husband, Sakhekile, in their Cambridge home in September 2016, Tuswa received a call from Ndudula asking him for help with her DStv.
“She called saying she needs me to move the decoder from the lounge to her bedroom. She knew this was the other work I was doing as an electrician. When I went there, I decided to take a friend to assist me. We were inside her bedroom, all three of us, and I was standing on a chair in her wardrobe trying to install the DStv,” Tuswa told the court.
He said moments later, Ndudula said she was “not happy” that he was ignoring her calls, “before she threatened to shoot me for such”.
“Me and my friend, we laughed at her and I said, ‘but you don’t have a gun to shoot me with’.
“She replied that she did have a gun and it was in the wardrobe that we were working on. Then she instructed my friend, who was near the shelves, to pull out this gun under some clothing on one of the shelves.
“My friend did find the gun, and before he handed it over to her, I asked him to remove the magazine first because I feared that she might shoot me for real.”
Tuswa said his friend, Buntu Jwayi, who also testified in court yesterday, removed the “fully loaded magazine” and handed the gun to Ndudula.
“Just when she took hold of the gun, I jumped from the chair I was using to access the top of the wardrobe and asked her to hand the gun to me because I suspected there could be a bullet in the chamber.
“Fortunately for me, when I breached the gun, which was now without a magazine, one bullet fell from the chamber to the ground.
“We were all shocked, with her saying she was surprised at the bullet as she was about to pull that trigger if I had not rechecked the gun.
“We later laughed about it, with her saying she nearly killed me. We later replaced the magazine and she placed the gun in its original place.”
Tuswa’s testimony corroborated Jwayi’s version.
Ndudula’s counsel, advocate Mike Maseti, told court that when Ndudula took the stand she would testify that there was never a romantic relationship between the two.
“She will testify that you proposed love to her when she gave you a lift, but also that she did not agree because she sensed some immaturity in you,” Maseti told the court.
Maseti added that Ndudula would testify that the gun did not belong to her but to her late husband, who was chief-of-staff in then social development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi’s office when he died in September 2016.
Yesterday, Sakhekile’s mother, Lulama Ndudula, 73, testified that the couple married in 1996 and had three children. They divorced a few years later after the wife accused the husband of raping her.
“He was arrested for three days, and when he came out, she evicted him from their home in East London, forcing him to load all his belongings in a van and move back home to Tsomo to stay with us, while the children remained with her.
“In 2011, we were informed that their six-year-old daughter had died after she had drowned in a bathtub at their East London home. This is when my son told me he was not happy that his children were growing up without him and he wanted to reconcile with his wife and remarry her.
“In 2012 he moved back to their home after they remarried, but I told him I did not see a future between him and a person who accused him of rape and evicted him,” said Lulama.
State prosecuting advocate Sakhumzi Mtsila said the rape charges were dropped in February 2008 after the state failed to prove its case.
Lulama further told court that during their first marriage, Ndudula would frequent their village home in Tsomo, “but after they remarried, we never saw her until July 2015, when their son underwent a traditional circumcision in our village”.
Lulama said this was the last time she had visited their homestead.
She said on the day of Sakhekile’s death, the family came to East London, but when they met the wife, she showed no emotion and never shed a tear in their presence.
“She was just herself all the time we were there. But I think she was suppose to cry when she saw me if we shared the same pain as me.”
Before state witnesses were called, Maseti read out a statement from Ndudula saying she pleaded not guilty and that her husband, an ANC leader, had many enemies.
Yesterday the gallery was divided into two groupings – those supporting the widow, and the family of her late husband.
The trial continues today.
'She would have killed me'
East London health department data capturer Ayanda Tuswa, 34, a qualified electrician who did freelance electrical work, yesterday told Judge Igna Stretch in the East London High Court that he had a week-long affair with Ndudula in 2009.
The primary school teacher stands accused of shooting her husband Sakhekile, a senior government official, seven times in their Cambridge West home in September 2016.
He said they had the fling when they were both working as election officers for the Independent Electoral Commission during the election period that year.
Tuswa said he abruptly ended it because he was “uncomfortable” with sneaking out of his home where he lived with his parents in Cambridge every night to spend the night with her. It was a strain to sneak back in during the early hours and then still have to work.
Tuswa said he did not inform Ndudula of his decision because he was embarrassed by their 12-year age difference. “I just ignored her calls and messages and stopped communicating with her, but I did not explicitly tell her that it was over.”
Between March and April 2016, just five months before the gruesome killing of Ndudula’s husband, Sakhekile, in their Cambridge home in September 2016, Tuswa received a call from Ndudula asking him for help with her DStv.
“She called saying she needs me to move the decoder from the lounge to her bedroom. She knew this was the other work I was doing as an electrician. When I went there, I decided to take a friend to assist me. We were inside her bedroom, all three of us, and I was standing on a chair in her wardrobe trying to install the DStv,” Tuswa told the court.
He said moments later, Ndudula said she was “not happy” that he was ignoring her calls, “before she threatened to shoot me for such”.
“Me and my friend, we laughed at her and I said, ‘but you don’t have a gun to shoot me with’.
“She replied that she did have a gun and it was in the wardrobe that we were working on. Then she instructed my friend, who was near the shelves, to pull out this gun under some clothing on one of the shelves.
“My friend did find the gun, and before he handed it over to her, I asked him to remove the magazine first because I feared that she might shoot me for real.”
Tuswa said his friend, Buntu Jwayi, who also testified in court yesterday, removed the “fully loaded magazine” and handed the gun to Ndudula.
“Just when she took hold of the gun, I jumped from the chair I was using to access the top of the wardrobe and asked her to hand the gun to me because I suspected there could be a bullet in the chamber.
“Fortunately for me, when I breached the gun, which was now without a magazine, one bullet fell from the chamber to the ground.
“We were all shocked, with her saying she was surprised at the bullet as she was about to pull that trigger if I had not rechecked the gun.
“We later laughed about it, with her saying she nearly killed me. We later replaced the magazine and she placed the gun in its original place.”
Tuswa’s testimony corroborated Jwayi’s version.
Ndudula’s counsel, advocate Mike Maseti, told court that when Ndudula took the stand she would testify that there was never a romantic relationship between the two.
“She will testify that you proposed love to her when she gave you a lift, but also that she did not agree because she sensed some immaturity in you,” Maseti told the court.
Maseti added that Ndudula would testify that the gun did not belong to her but to her late husband, who was chief-of-staff in then social development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi’s office when he died in September 2016.
Yesterday, Sakhekile’s mother, Lulama Ndudula, 73, testified that the couple married in 1996 and had three children. They divorced a few years later after the wife accused the husband of raping her.
“He was arrested for three days, and when he came out, she evicted him from their home in East London, forcing him to load all his belongings in a van and move back home to Tsomo to stay with us, while the children remained with her.
“In 2011, we were informed that their six-year-old daughter had died after she had drowned in a bathtub at their East London home. This is when my son told me he was not happy that his children were growing up without him and he wanted to reconcile with his wife and remarry her.
“In 2012 he moved back to their home after they remarried, but I told him I did not see a future between him and a person who accused him of rape and evicted him,” said Lulama.
State prosecuting advocate Sakhumzi Mtsila said the rape charges were dropped in February 2008 after the state failed to prove its case.
Lulama further told court that during their first marriage, Ndudula would frequent their village home in Tsomo, “but after they remarried, we never saw her until July 2015, when their son underwent a traditional circumcision in our village”.
Lulama said this was the last time she had visited their homestead.
She said on the day of Sakhekile’s death, the family came to East London, but when they met the wife, she showed no emotion and never shed a tear in their presence.
“She was just herself all the time we were there. But I think she was suppose to cry when she saw me if we shared the same pain as me.”
Before state witnesses were called, Maseti read out a statement from Ndudula saying she pleaded not guilty and that her husband, an ANC leader, had many enemies.
Yesterday the gallery was divided into two groupings – those supporting the widow, and the family of her late husband.
The trial continues today.
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