A Bulawayo man who was about to complete his nine-month jail term is likely to extend his stay in prison after he was nabbed for a murder offence he allegedly committed six years ago.
The man is alleged to be part of a trio that gruesomely killed a security guard at a local flea market in the city centre in 2013.
A court heard the police thought he was on the run all along after he had fled the country to South Africa subsequently after the commission of the offence.
His alleged accomplices are currently serving a life imprisonment term for murder after they were convicted by Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Martin Makonese.
Ignatius Mehluli Mhlanga (25) appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ulekile Mlea-Ndlovu facing a murder charge and was not asked to plead.
The magistrate remanded him in custody to October 28.
According to State papers as presented by Mufaro Mageza, Mhlanga skipped the country in 2013 after allegedly brutally killing Vengai Murisi at a flea market in the CBD with two other accomplices-Timothy Mathema (30) and Isaac Nyakurerwa (35) who are now serving life sentences.
Mageza said the trio brutally attacked Murisi at his workplace by tying his hands, legs and neck using a wire coat hanger before strangling him to death using a jacket draw-string.
The prosecutor added that Mathema and Nyakurerwa were convicted of murder with actual intent and they implicated Mhlanga, who at the time had fled to South Africa.
“The trio went to the flea market with an intent to carry out a robbery. Murisi heard their movements and confronted them. They brutally attacked him using wooden planks and tied his hands, legs and neck to a steel table using a coat hanger wire. They proceeded to suffocate him using a jacket string. They got away with three bags full of clothes and footwear valued at USD$4 330,” said Mageza.
“Mhlanga got arrested six years later and was jailed for nine months a robbery case he had committed upon his return. All this while the police continued looking for him while he was serving a prison term. He was arrested on October 12 at Bulawayo Prison just before he had completed his robbery jail term.”
