BULAWAYO – A woman shot dead shortly after leaving court in Cape Town, South Africa, on May 25 was a 30-year-old Zimbabwean who witnessed her friend’s murder in 2018, ZimLive has heard.
Christine Yolanda Gumira’s daylight execution has been watched by hundreds of thousands of people online after it was captured on CCTV.
In the video, the mother-of-one is seen wearing a hoodie walking on a street with two others before a man casually approaches from behind and shoots her once in the head. A second bullet, according to police, hit a car outside the Wynberg Magistrates Court.
South African police said they have arrested four suspects over her killing.
Gumira’s relatives said she had reported threats against her life to police but she had not been offered any protection.
Her niece, speaking on condition she was not named for her own safety, said: “I strongly feel the South African state failed her. She told police that she was getting threats from the people that killed her friend; they told her that if she testified against them, they were going to kill her and they did.”
On Friday, Cape Town provincial police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Pojie said: “Investigations by a dedicated integrated team comprising detectives from the provincial office and Wynberg detectives has landed four suspects behind bars in connection with the murder.
“The victim was [shot dead] after leaving the court building en route to the taxi rank. The investigation took the team to different locations within the Cape metropole, where they conducted tracing operations and arrested the four suspects after they were positively linked to the murder through investigation and forensic evidence.
“Police also seized a silver Nissan Tiida as well as cellular phones that will be analysed.”
Pojie said the suspects, aged between 24 and 33, are to appear in the Wynberg magistrate’s court on Monday.
“Due to the sensitive nature of the investigation, no further details will be divulged.”
Gumira’s body will leave Cape Town on Monday for burial in Mhondoro Ngezi, Mashonaland West.
Gumira’s niece said she had plans to move to New Zealand to join her boyfriend this month.
Friends said Gumira had become a state witness in a murder trial after witnessing her friend’s shooting death in a shooting in 2018, apparently a hit.
One narrated: “Christine was working at a restaurant and had shared a house with one of her colleagues, a South African national. Their manager had his wife, a Zimbabwean from Bulawayo, also working at the same restaurant.
“The manager started an affair with Christine’s roommate, which his wife became aware of. The wife went to where Christine lived with in the company of hired hitmen and found the other woman had moved out. They demanded that Christine should take them to her, or they would shoot her son.
“She took them to her friend’s new residence. The friend was murdered in front of Christine, and she was threatened never to tell anyone or cooperate with the police.
“Police subsequently arrested both Christine and the manager’s wife on suspicion of murder, but they were later freed.
“The matter appeared to have died a natural death until early this year when Christine was approached by police at her new workplace and given a court date as an accused person. When she was murdered, prosecutors had just told the court that she was now going to be a state witness against her friend’s killers.”
The family has appealed for assistance for Gumira’s 13-year-old son, whose father is unemployed.
Please contact the boy’s aunt Judith Mukunyadze on +263783195838. Any assistance welcome
(This story has been revised to correct some information about how Christine’s friend was murdered)
