HWANGE – A security guard who shot dead an illegal gold panner during a confrontation at a mine near Inyathi last year has been acquitted of murder, with the High Court finding that he acted in self-defence and out of necessity.
Mbekezeli Ngwabi, 52, of Tshongogwe village in Lupane, was found not guilty by Justice Nokuthula Moyo of the Bulawayo High Court, sitting on circuit in Hwange on Wednesday.
He had pleaded not guilty to murdering Thabo Ngwenya, 31, of Mtshatshane village in Cross Zenka, Nkayi, who died after being shot once in the chest on November 30, 2025.
Defence lawyer Nkosiyenzile Mpofu of Abel Law Chambers told journalists outside court that the judge had accepted both lines of defence raised on Ngwabi’s behalf.
“The judge accepted that this was self-defence in terms of section 253 of the criminal code because he had no other option and the force he used was proportionate given the imminent harm,” Mpofu said.
“We further placed a defence of necessity in terms of section 263 of the code and the judge also agreed with us. We are very pleased for our client who regains his freedom after a very unfortunate situation where someone has died.”
Ngwabi was employed as a security guard at DGL5 Queens Mine in Inyathi.
According to the Nationalist Prosecuting Authority (NPA), he and two colleagues – Elisha Mutsvayi and Lawrence Sam – were on patrol at around 10AM when they came across a group of illegal miners working the mine’s claim. The trio managed to arrest one of the miners, but the rest fled.
The group of illegal miners then regrouped and began pelting Ngwabi and his colleagues with stones, demanding the release of the man who had been detained.
The NPA said the miners became increasingly aggressive and overpowered the guards, who released their captive, but the attack continued.
Fleeing towards the mine’s gate, Ngwabi and his colleagues found their path blocked by the miners. It was at this point, the prosecution said, that Ngwabi fired a single shot from a 12-bore Escort shotgun, fatally wounding Matsvai in the chest. The miners scattered, while the deceased ran roughly 100 metres before collapsing and dying of his injuries.
In his defence outline, Ngwabi gave a more detailed account, stating he had responded to an alarm raised over a group of 50 to 60 illegal miners threatening guards at one of the mine’s shafts. He said that after one miner was detained, the crowd – armed with stones, axes, picks, catapults and machetes – charged at the guards, who retreated towards the mine entrance while firing repeated warning shots of rubber bullets.
According to the defence, Ngwabi released the detained miner as the mob continued advancing and shouting that the guards should be beaten, but the crowd pressed forward regardless. Having exhausted his supply of rubber bullets, he loaded live ammunition and discharged it towards the ground in a further bid to scare off his attackers, only for it to strike and fatally wound the deceased.
The defence outline stated that the mob, after the shooting, went on to vandalise the mine’s guardroom, destroy surveillance cameras, force entry into company offices and loot laptops and gold ore, before police arrived roughly an hour later and arrested Ngwabi.
Ngwabi argued he had acted to protect mine property and the lives of himself and his colleagues against an unlawful, imminent and life-threatening attack, with no reasonable means of escape available, and that he had exhausted lesser options including retreat and warning shots before resorting to live ammunition.
He denied any intention to kill or injure the deceased, maintaining that the fatal wound was unintended and accidental.
Three of Ngwabi’s mine co-workers, Msiziwethu Mathuthu, Simion Khumalo and William Shiri, gave broadly consistent accounts in their witness statements of seeing the accused and two colleagues being chased towards the mine fence by a crowd of illegal miners armed with shovels, picks, small axes and stones, who were heard shouting in Ndebele for the guards to stop beating one of their number and to leave the area.
The witnesses said that once cornered at the fence, Ngwabi turned and fired a shot, after which the miners dispersed and the guards were able to enter the mine premises.
A forensic ballistics report compiled by Stephen Gundumure, a forensic firearms identification officer at the Forensic Science Directorate, confirmed that the shotgun used by Ngwabi had been fired, and that test cartridges fired from it matched the spent cartridge case recovered from the scene. The weapon did not match any other crime scenes on the ballistics database.
Detective Constable Lameck Ndlovu of CID Inyathi, who attended the scene and recovered the firearm and spent cartridge, also gave a statement, as did pathologist Dr Sanganai Pesanai of United Bulawayo Hospitals, who carried out the post-mortem examination on the deceased.
Mncedisi Dube prosecuted for the NPA.
