CONSTABLE Aaron Moriri(43) a former detective, will remain in jail in order to complete the seven years remaining on his sentence. This comes as a result of the Mhala Regional Court sitting in Skukuza on May 19 deciding not to hear the applicant’s appeal of his sentence.
Moriri, who was employed at the Mhala police station in Thulamahashe, Mpumalanga, was determined to be responsible for the death of Comfort Kubayi, who was 27 years old, in the year 2010. On April 10, 2010, police opened fire on Kubayi while they were conducting a raid at his home in Thulamahashe. The police had reason to believe that he was in possession of stolen property, but they found nothing.
Earlier, Moriri entered a not-guilty plea to the charge that he shot Kubayi with a police R5 rifle. During the course of the trial, he presented different statements, which directly contradicted each other. In one account, he denied pulling the trigger but then unexpectedly made a U-turn and said he did it in self-defense because Kubayi was armed with a blade knife.
According to him, everything happened very quickly, and he pulled the trigger of an R5 rifle and shot Kubayi in the stomach. The bullet entered the bedroom and struck both the wall and Moriri’s coworker.
However, the state determined that Moriri was guilty of making a statement that was misleading and of contradicting himself in court. According to the court, part of Moriri’s papers state that he claimed Kubayi had handled his handgun, which led to his being shot at. In a different account, he claimed that he had been shot as a result of a collision with the firearm. Moriri further stated that he and Kubayi were scuffling with the pistol at the time that he was shot.
After shooting the deceased individual, Moriri was accused of not doing anything to try to save his life on the day of the occurrence. Instead, it is alleged that he dragged him out of his residence and shoved him into the back of an open police bakkie before discarding him at the Thulamahashe Health Centre. There, he allegedly left him for dead lying on the floor without communicating with the nurses.
According to the testimony of Warrant Officer Godfrey Mawela, he found the deceased individual lying on the floor of the clinic with his intestines exposed in a pool of blood. Upon arrival, paramedics pronounced him dead.
