Update

GEORGE NEWS - He shot her because he believed she and her colleagues were part of "a conspiracy to assassinate him". 

This was what the accused Bonginkosi Ndevu (30), who is facing, among others, a charge of attempted murder after he shot provincial traffic officer Janneké Bergman near the Pacaltsdorp bridge in 2020, testified last week.

Bergman was shot when she assisted two of her colleagues during an attempt to arrest Ndevu after they pulled over the silver Audi A4 that he was travelling in near Stanmar Motors. He was about to be arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol due to the way he was acting and speaking. Bottles of liquor were also found in his car.

Video footage

Video footage shown in court shows Bergman and her colleagues struggling to arrest Ndevu as he resists. He finally manages to overpower them and tries to run away, but Bergman hangs on to him.

He then fires two shots in her direction with his unlicensed firearm, that had been hidden in the front of his pants, but misses. She tries to get away, but falls down and injures her ankle.

She crawls to the side of the car where Ndevu fires two more shots - one hits her knee and the other her cheek - before taking her service pistol.

Ndevu then calmly leaves the scene with Bergman's pistol, another firearm and the illegal ammunition he was carrying with him.

He testified in court that he resisted arrest as he didn't know why they were arresting him and thought they were there to kill him. He also insisted that they cuff his hands in front of him and not behind his back.

Rank manager fleeing for his life

During his testimony in the Thembalethu Regional Court on Thursday 13 April, Ndevu said he suspected that Bergman and her two female colleagues were there to assassinate him as he believed he was being targeted by hitmen from Cape Town. He said where he comes from, police and traffic officials can't be trusted.

Ndevu said that he was a "rank manager" at taxi rank in Khayelitsha and was on his way to the Eastern Cape on 6 August 2020, the day before the incident, as the taxi violence situation was escalating in Cape Town and he was fearing for his life.

He said he decided to go to the Eastern Cape after one of his own taxis was hijacked by alleged hitmen in Cape Town and he and a colleague who allegedly accompanied him to Mossel Bay, were shot at.

It is for this reason that he was hesitant to believe that Bergman and her colleagues were real traffic officers.

Permit

According to Ndevu, he stopped in George to arrange for a permit from a man in Thembalethu to cross the border to the Eastern Cape as it was during lockdown.

When he arrived in Thembalethu the man told him to drive to town to fetch his permit. It was during this trip that Ndevu was pulled over by Bergman's colleagues before Bergman also arrived on the scene.

Drinking and driving

During his testimony Ndevu denied that the alcohol found in his car was his or that he was intoxicated. He said it belonged to the colleague he dropped off in Mossel Bay on his way to George from Cape Town to the Eastern Cape where he was born.

He also said that his colleague phoned him after the officers pulled him over to say that he had forgotten his firearm in Ndevu's car. Ndevu said he then took the gun, which was in the front passenger side of the car, and put it "on his waist", intending to leave it with the person he was collecting his permit from. This is the firearm he used to shoot Bergman, which was later proved to be an unlicensed and illegal. The weapon had no serial number.

The driver's licence that he showed the officer who pulled him over, also didn't belong to him.

Arrest

After the shooting, Ndevu calmly walked away from the scene and was arrested shortly afterwards when he was spotted walking along the highway. He allegedly opened fire on the two police officers who chased after him. The officers returned fire, wounding him twice.

Two firearms, one of which was Bergman's service pistol, and an undisclosed amount of cash were found in his possession. Ndevu remains in custody in the Eastern Cape.

Pleaded not guilty

Ndevu, from Khayelitsha, previously pleaded not guilty to all seven charges against him. These include two of attempted murder after he opened fire on Bergman and a police officer who gave chase after Bergman was shot, possession of illegal firearms, possession of illegal ammunition and pointing of a firearm.

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