Text messages Thandi Maqubela sent to her husband on his extramarital affairs were not threatening, the Western Cape High Court heard.
|||Cape Town - Text messages Thandi Maqubela sent to her husband on his extramarital affairs were not threatening, the Western Cape High Court heard on Tuesday.
The State read five SMSes sent from Maqubela's phone to her husband, acting judge Patrick Maqubela, between September 2007 and June 2008.
She was on the stand for his death on June 5, 2009, which she maintains was due to natural causes. She and a co-accused Vela Mabena have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, forgery and fraud, which relate to her late husband's last will.
Prosecutor Bonnie Currie-Gamwo put it to Maqubela that her messages had an aggressive tone and that she had threatened to expose her husband to various people, including his parents.
Maqubela replied: “You are not correct. It's not threatening, not exposing. I am married and if something is wrong in our culture, you must go tell your in-laws.”
Two messages Maqubela sent to her husband on June 24, 2008, alluded to a confrontation a woman had with her and a threat to report her to a police station.
The second message appeared to be about Maqubela threatening to show a “tape” to this woman's mother and other individuals. The State asked if she remembered these messages.
“At this point I cannot remember about those two SMSes,” she replied.
Judge John Murphy asked if she could remember whether she had this “tape”. Maqubela said she must have sent the text messages because they were from her phone.
Currie-Gamwo asked if this meant the messages could thus be accepted as the truth.
“Yes, but I am trying to remember who is this lady.”
Maqubela was asked how she knew Mabena. She testified they first met for business in Cape Town, in June 2008. He was a distributor for Forever Living Products in the Cape. They met a second time at a workshop in Johannesburg, at the start of 2009.
In March or April 2009, they were at a business presentation and he told her he would like to get a copy of a book on natural remedies. They arranged to meet and hand over the book on June 5, 2009, but an appointment came up. Maqubela said they rescheduled to meet the next day.
The trial was postponed until Wednesday. - Sapa