The family of slain Knysna businessman Mawande Kondlo cried bitterly as they filled the gallery of the town’s magistrate’s court where his alleged murderer applied for bail on Wednesday.
Local councillors, business people and family filled the small court to capacity, while an SAPS public order policing vehicle manned the parking outside as Waydon Bezuidenhout appeared for a formal bail application.
Bezuidenhout, 32, was arrested on August 25 after an extensive investigation by Knysna detectives in collaboration with the Garden Route district crime intelligence and a private security company.
Kondlo’s body was found next to a gravel road near the turn-off from Uniondale Road at about 6.50pm on January 17 with a gunshot wound to the head.
Bezuidenhout pleaded with the court to release him on bail because he had a funeral parlour business to look after.
He claimed that he was the only person legally authorised to transport corpses for the company.
With him in custody, his five children and unemployed wife would be disadvantaged, he said.
Bezuidenhout denied being the last person to be seen with Kondlo.
“I told the detective that there was another guy that was with Mawande, they were drinking two or three beers together,” Bezuidenhout said.
Investigating officer Sergeant Vusumzi Xokozela told the court that video footage and the tracker of the bakkie Bezuidenhout had hired from George had pinned him to the murder.
Xokozela said Kondlo’s hands had also been tied with the kind of rope usually used in funeral flower decorations.
Testifying about the vehicle tracker, Xokozela said: “It [the vehicle] stood at the vicinity of the crime scene for 25 minutes, it drove back to the vicinity of Khayalethu for a few minutes before driving back to where the deceased was found.
“It drove slowly near the crime scene, then suddenly it accelerated.”
Xokozela said witnesses had seen Bezuidenhout driving the hired vehicle a day after the murder.
The matter continues on Thursday.
HeraldLIVE