Convicted warder held following death threats
By Sam Mkokeli
Source: The Herald Online
POLICE yesterday arrested Patensie prison warder Mongameli Nonzube, who is accused of threatening to kill a fellow prison warder, after being convicted of indecently assaulting and attempting to rape her.
Police said Nonzube was spotted loitering around at St George’s Strand yesterday by members of the public, following the publication of a report in Weekend Post with regards to his disappearance last year following his conviction.
He was convicted by the Humansdorp regional court for indecent assault and attempted rape against a fellow prison warder and sentenced to five years.
He was out on bail – after appealing the sentence – when he disappeared.
A police spokesman said last night that members of the public had stopped a police van passing Motherwell yesterday afternoon and said they had seen a man loitering at St George’s Strand.
The policeman, a member of the child protection unit, went to investigate and remembered Nonzube’s face from the paper. He contacted the Patensie police who took Nonzube to the Humansdorp holding cells, where he was kept overnight and will appear in court this morning.
A warrant for his arrest was issued last year already following his failure to appear in court for his appeal.
A distraught Patensie prison warder told Weekend Post last week that she feared for her life after receiving death threats which she believed were from Nonzube – or from someone calling on his behalf.
Margaret Brown, who suffered an emotional breakdown last month after enduring a year of anonymous threatening phone calls, said her life had been destroyed by the attack on her three years ago.
Nonzube indecently assaulted and tried to rape the divorced mother of two in her home on the grounds of the Patensie prison in January 2001.
Mrs Brown feared that he might be seeking revenge after being convicted for the attack. “The attack is on my mind constantly,” she told Weekend Post.
She had been off work since last April, and had been receiving the ominous telephone calls since September – usually very early in the morning, from a man threatening to kill her.
“It is a man’s voice and he says he is going to kill me and my children. Other times he has said he is not going to jail,” she sobbed.
