Zolani Tete murder: Bail bid postponed - IOL
The men accused of killing former boxing world champion Zolani Tete,38, were denied bail in the Mdantsane Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
The alleged mastermind and middleman behind the murder of boxing world champion Zolani Tete, 38, had their bail application postponed in the Mdantsane Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Uzozole Goqwana, 22, and Sinebongo Qase, 28, will appear in court again on Friday.
Tete, 38, was shot in Mdantsane in East London as he waited for his gate to open on August 21. He drove into the yard in an attempt to escape the gunfire but died at the scene. His 27-year-old girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat, was shot several times and remains in hospital.
The State believes that Tete's murder was meticulously planned, with Goqwana, the alleged mastermind, even going as far as hiring a middleman, Qase, to recruit two hitmen to ambush the boxing champion outside his home. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Luxolo Tyali said the alleged hitmen were Siphesihle Kolisa, 28, and Athandwa Gangala, 27.
Police recovered firearms and ammunition when they arrested Kolisa and Gangala. The two appeared in the KuGompo Magistrate's Court on charges of unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition recently. They abandoned their bail applications. Goqwana, who is wheelchair-bound, is being held in the medical ward of the West Bank Correctional Centre in KuGompo City.
Tete, who grew up in Mdantsane and boxed as "Last Born", won his first major world title in 2014 when he beat Japan's Teiru Kinoshita in Kobe for the vacant International Boxing Federation junior-bantamweight belt.
He became a two-division world champion in 2017 when he won the World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight title, which he held until Filipino John Riel Casimero took it off him in 2019.
Tete held the Guinness World Record for the fastest knockout in a world title fight, stopping fellow South African Siboniso Gonya in 11 seconds in Belfast in November 2017.
He was killed weeks after a four-year doping ban ended on July 29, and was preparing to fight again.
