http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5243713

ANC councillor ‘led xenophobic attacks’
November 13, 2009 Edition 1
Tania Broughton

ETHEKWINI ANC councillor Vusi Khoza was the “war general”, leading
January’s xenophobic attacks on foreigners living in Durban’s Albert
Park area, a survivor testified in court yesterday.

“He was the one leading the mob who were chanting that the kwerekwere
(a derogatory reference to foreigners) should go back home.

“He was the one who pointed at me and said ‘there is another one’.

“He was the one who instructed others to ‘throw this thing out of the
window’,” said Zimbabwean Eugene Madondo before Durban Regional Court
Magistrate Fariedha Mohamed yesterday.

The attack on the Venture Africa building on the night of January 4
left Zimbabwean Victor Zowa and Tanzanian Said Omari dead. They were
apparently pushed from a fifth floor window.

Madondo testified that he was also pushed out of a window but survived
after falling on one of the bodies already lying below.

Khosa and his co-accused, Sean Thabo Jacobs, Patricia Ballantyne and
Mzokuthoba Mnonyama pleaded not guilty to public violence charges,
denying that they were there that night.

Jacobs denied further charges of malicious injury to property and
attempting to murder Madondo.

No-one has been charged with Zowa and Omari’s murders.

Speaking through an interpreter, Madondo, who is in the witness
protection programme, said a group armed with knobkerries, knives and
sticks, singing and chanting that they were tired of foreigners, had
entered the building.

He described the leader as “a short man with long hair”, who he
identified as Khoza, both at an identity parade and again yesterday in
court.

Madondo said he had ventured out of his room after hearing windows
breaking and doors being kicked open.

Khoza was standing with a woman in the passageway.

“He pointed and said ‘there is another one’. The woman said ‘hit him’
three times.”

At that point a man he identified as Jacobs hit him on his head with a
knobkerrie, while others punched him in his stomach and pulled his
genitals.

Khoza then instructed that he be thrown from a window.

“They tried to push me through the window but I held on to the frame.
They were hitting me and pushing me out, head first.
“I knew I was going to die because I could see two motionless bodies
down there already.

“I grabbed on to a pipe next to the window, but the guy with the
knobkerrie hit it and it broke. I fell and landed on top of one of the
bodies,” he said.

He crawled to a nearby storeroom where he lost consciousness and awoke
in hospital, where he stayed for more than a month recovering from a
broken leg, head injury and fractured spine.

Madondo said he entered the witness protection programme after
receiving threats, including one that he would be “triple crippled” if
he co-operated with the police.

Defence advocate Mike Mthembu said Madondo had said “he looks similar
to the person who was among the group” when pointing out Khoza at the
identification parade.

However, Madondo was adamant that Khoza had been the mob leader.

“They deny being part of the group,” Mthembu said, to which Madondo
replied: “It’s all lies.”

The trial has been adjourned until February next year.