More than two-and-a-half years ago my brother, Elphus Mfana Adonis Motha, was murdered ruthlessly somewhere in Pretoria, with his body thrown in the veld next to a road in the GaRankuwa area. Helped by the police, we found his body there, two days after his disappearance, with multiple stab wounds.
More than two-and-a-half years later, no arrest has been made. According to the investigating officer, Captain de Jong, to whom I spoke this week, the National Prosecuting Authority, in the person of Senior Prosecutor Mrs Mulaudzi in the Pretoria North Region, has now taken a decision to close his case docket. We, Adonis's family, who did not even have the privilege of burying him, simply cannot allow this travesty to happen.
So, with a broken heart, I turn again to you, my compatriots, as I did following this dastardly murder, with my Cri de coeur: please, please, please help us find my brother's killers. Nobody, least of all a gentle soul like Adonis, should ever be killed with impunity. Those who tortured him and took his life should be found, prosecuted and sent away to rot in jail.
Who is this Adonis, and what are the circumstances that surrounded his death? He is my brother (I still can't bring myself to speak about him in the past tense), and he is the best friend I have ever had. His mother, Sophie Nkambule, was an elder sister to my mother, Maria Nkambule, who each married into the Motha and Nyatsumba families respectively in the White River-Nelspruit areas of Mpumalanga.
Forty-eight years ago, the two sisters gave birth to two boys on the same day: my mother to me, and my aunt to Adonis some few hours later. We have been very close ever since, until that dreadful day on which he was killed. I was cruelly robbed of my brother and my best friend, his five children were robbed of their beloved father and the rest of the family was robbed of a son, a nephew, a brother and a cousin.
Even at this stage, we still cannot accept this planned, callous closing of the investigation into his murder. Together, as a family, we appeal to you, fellow South Africans, to help bring his murderers to justice. Please call Captain de Jong with any piece of information, on (012) 541-1005 and 083-654-2800.
The circumstances of Adonis's disappearance and subsequent murder are bizarre, to say the least. According to his widow, Mrs Chunku Motha (nee Mashiane), Adonis disappeared on Wednesday, 3 June 2009. It was at 7.45am on Thursday, June 4 that I first learned of his "disappearance". I had started a new job three days earlier, which were spent on an out-of-town orientation programme, and I was on my way to the office in Rosebank for the very first day, when I received a call from a friend in Nelspruit asking me if I had heard about Adonis's "disappearance".
To say I was shocked would be a gross understatement. Never in our lives had Adonis and I ever done such a thing, hence I knew immediately that something had gone terribly wrong.
I was to learn later from Mrs Chunku Motha that Adonis had arrived home at Chantelle, Pretoria around 7.30pm on Wednesday evening, and immediately announced that he was going to see his friend, Lucky Manzini, at the nearby township of Soshanguve. He knew Soshanguve very well, having spent 19 years working first as a teacher and later as a school principal there. I was told that he did not return home.
And yet, our well-known closeness notwithstanding, I was not called later that night when it became apparent that my brother was not returning home, nor was I - or any other member of the family - called the following morning. Instead, my sister-in-law sent three "Please Call Me" messages - the first one at 3.46:18, the next one at 3.46:28 and the last one at 3.46:40 - to Manzini, and then the last one just before 6am.
Manzini subsequently told me that it was when he called Chunku's number that he learned that Adonis had left home to see him (Manzini was not expecting Adonis that evening), and that he had not returned home. He called another mutual friend of theirs in Soshanguve to ask if he had seen Adonis, and that friend called another one in Nelspruit, who then alerted me immediately.
My wife left for Pretoria immediately, and together with Chunku and Manzini they searched for my brother at different hospitals and police stations. I joined them some four hours later, but on my way to Pretoria I decided to call Talk Radio 702's Eye Witness News with a request that they broadcast the fact that Adonis had disappeared, asking listeners who had seen either him or the car that he was driving on Wednesday evening to call me. When I informed her, as a courtesy, of my intention, my sister-in-law asked me not to do so, arguing that it was still early to panic. This was a good 16 hours after my brother had "disappeared"! After further consulting the extended family, all of whom agreed with me, I called the station with my request.
After a wild, two-day search, the police called us on Friday evening, saying that they had found a body in the GaRankuwa area. A younger brother and I travelled with them to the scene, and there, on a veld, we found Adonis: lifeless, with stab wounds throughout his body, with an attempt having been made to burn him (his clothes were half burnt).
Our uncles and our sisters travelled to Pretoria the following day, and a request was presented to my sister-in-law: given the terrible and suspicious circumstances of my brother's murder, coupled with the facts that there are many unanswered questions and that all but one of his children are in Mpumalanga, the family wanted Adonis buried at White River, where his parents, grand-parents and other relatives lie buried. She had one child of her own, but she and Adonis did not have one together.
She rejected this reasonable request out of hand, saying that it was my brother's wish to be buried in Pretoria. Some of my brother's wishes, she added, were that he should be buried within three days of his death, that she can re-marry immediately after she has mourned his death for a maximum of two weeks, and that she had to go to his cemetery every Sunday to read his favourite Sunday newspapers to him. We found these so-called wishes most ridiculous. We argued that even if some of them were true, Adonis, who could hardly harm a fly, would certainly not have known that he would die such a terrible death, in very mysterious circumstances.
In the end, my sister-in-law went ahead with the funeral on Saturday, with not a single one of Adonis's relatives present, giving my brother something close to a pauper's burial, according to those who were present. Subsequently, she claimed - unsuccessfully - that my brother's children were not biologically his, and that she alone, as his widow, qualified to benefit from his estate.
A few days following my brother's so-called disappearance and his terrible murder, on Sunday, 7 June 2009, another man, this time Western Cape High Court Acting Judge Patrick Maqubela, was found dead at his Sea Point, Cape Town home. Not long thereafter, arrests were made and a trial has been going on for some time now. I am pleased for the Maqubela family, which is likely to see justice done, but each time I read about the trial or hear about it on radio or TV, I am reminded of the fact that my brother's killers have yet to be arrested, let alone tried.
Do we not, as a family, deserve the kind of closure that the Maqubela family is likely to have? Would things have been different had my brother also been an acting judge?
As a family, we do not accept the planned closure of his murder docket - and we will never do so. There is nothing that we have not done: I have hired private investigators to assist the police in their investigation, I have written to President Jacob Zuma, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and to then Police Commissioner Tim Williams (I subsequently forwarded the correspondence to General Bheki Cele, when he was appointed), and yet no progress has been registered in the investigation. Something just seems so horribly wrong here.
Adonis was the friendliest and most affable person that I have ever known, and he was blessed with a special talent to keep his emotions in check. Nobody deserves the barbarity that was visited upon my brother, but least of all Adonis. He was the gentlest and most genial of souls.
It is totally unforgivable, therefore, that he could die such a terrible, painful and cruel death, with stab wounds throughout all parts of his body, with unsuccessful attempts having been made to burn him. So it is our fervent hope, dear readers, that you will assist us in getting those responsible for this vilest of deeds, and the brains behind it, to be found, arrested, successfully prosecuted and sent away for the rest of their lives. These savages deserve no less.
Any information, however, minor it may seem, will be greatly appreciated. Please call Captain De Jong on 083-654-2800.
Where is my sister-in-law now? I do not know. Nobody in the family has contact with her. I cannot but wonder: does she go to Adonis's cemetery every Sunday morning to read him his favourite newspapers?
Kaizer Nyatsumba is a business executive based in Johannesburg.
Adonis Motha and Kaizer Nyatsumba at their joint 31st birthday party, Malvern, Johannesburg, November 1994:
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