Brigadier cleared after pastor's highway death

AN inquest into the death of Soweto pastor Siphiwe Khambule, who was killed in a road accident last year, has found that no one could be held liable.

Khambule, 42, was hit by a car driven by Brigadier Lucas Ngobeni as he was crossing the N3 highway near Harrismith in the Free State. He had been in the process of fetching a rock to balance his car's jack so he could fix a punctured tyre. His wife, Tshoki, daughters Zinhle and Buhle, and son Simphiwe, were with him at the time.

Ngobeni is the husband of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni.

Phaladi Shuping, spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, said the state had decided not to prosecute Ngobeni owing to a "lack of evidence".

"An informal inquest was held and the magistrate came to the conclusion that the death of the deceased could not be attributed to an act or omission amounting to an offence on the part of any person," Shuping said.

The inquest was held in the Harrismith Magistrate's Court and the ruling was handed down in October.

But Khambule's family this week told the Sunday Times that they had not attended the inquest because they received notice of the proceedings well after the inquest date.

His widow said the family believed the police had not properly investigated the matter. She claimed there were several "inefficiencies" in the handling of the case. These included errors in the initial accident report.

"Even the documentation that the police sent us about the inquest had the wrong [spelling of the] name, wrong date of death and even the wrong identity number [for Khambule]. How can I believe that the police investigated this properly after so many inefficiencies?"

Free State police spokesman Sergeant Mmako Mophiring said all errors picked up in the accident report had been corrected.

Asked whether Ngobeni was tested for alcohol at the time of the accident, Mophiring said: "No. There were no signs that the officer was under the influence or intoxicated."

Ngobeni, contacted for comment on Friday, said he was unaware of the inquest court's finding and declined to comment further.