INSPECTION-IN-LOCO FOR THABANI INQUEST

NHLAMBENI – The road, at the point where the car which was driven by the late Thabani Nkomonye veered off, is straight.

This argument was raised by the Nkomonye family’s legal team during the inspection-in-loco of the accident scene. Lawyers who were present yesterday included Advocate Mduduzi ‘Tsotsi’ Mabila, Gigi Reid and Mangaliso Nkomondze. Upon arrival at the accident scene at Nhlambeni, along the Mhlaleni/Nhlangano Public Road, Advocate Mabila asked that they should begin by verifying if the road around the scene was curvy or not. He said, according to his observation, part of the road had a gentle curve, but at the point where Nkomonye’s car veered off, it was straight.

Coroner

The Coroner, Senior Magistrate Nonhlanhla Dlamini, asked the Prosecutor, Fikile Dlamini, if she agreed with what the advocate was saying regarding the state of the road. In response, the prosecutor said she differed. She submitted that, according to her observation, the road was curvy. However, after making some demonstrations to substantiate his argument that at the point where the car veered off, the road was straight, the parties eventually reached an agreement that indeed it was not curvy. Thereafter, as they were analysing the state of the road, Advocate Mabila wondered if the accident was as a result of Nkomonye’s failure to negotiate the corner or it was something else. He mentioned that, according to his analysis, if the deceased failed to negotiate the corner, which bends towards the left, the car should have veered off towards the right side, not the left side where it ended up landing.

“If the deceased failed to negotiate the corner, it means that how the accident happened was directly the opposite of what was supposed to take place,” Mabila added. He also used an example by a scene which was opposite that of the accident scene whereby he mentioned that the vehicle, which plunged into a ditch that was on the right side of the road towards Nhlangano, might have failed to negotiate the corner and that was why it landed on that side of the road. However, it was mentioned that such arguments would be raised to the police officer who attended to the accident. The witness, who gave evidence yesterday at the accident scene, was the third witness, Constable Detective Sanele Malindzisa, who is under the Scenes of Crime Department in Manzini. He was describing the accident scene as it was on May 13, 2021, when Nkomonye’s body was discovered.

Missing

Nkomonye is the 25-year-old law student, who went missing on the night of Saturday May 8, 2021, after his car, a Mazda II Demio, was said to have been involved in a traffic accident at Nhlambeni.

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