Magaqa ‘asked God to save him’‚ says pastor

As Sindiso Magaqa clung to life after he was critically wounded in a failed assassination attempt‚ he had "seen God".

Magaqa‚ the former secretary-general of the ANC Youth League‚ relayed his vision to his pastor who had visited his bedside in the Durban hospital.

Magaqa and two others were wounded when the car they were travelling in was riddled with bullets in a hit-style attack in Umzimkhulu in July. He survived the attack‚ but last week died in hospital. His two colleagues survived but are still in hospital.

Addressing hundreds of mourners on Saturday‚ Pastor Johnson Bavu said that Magaqa had wept in his hospital bed.

"I went to see him and he wept and said that he had seen our God‚" he said.

He purportedly told the clergyman that as he lay wounded in the bullet-riddled car‚ he begged God to spare his life.

"He told me that he asked God to save him‚" he added.

Among the mourners were ANC Treasurer Zweli Mkhize‚ Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba. Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu was choppered in‚ arriving on a private charter from Durban's Virginia Airport.