The murder trial of Alutha Pasile for the murder of Nosicelo Mtebeni continued in the High Court in East London on Tuesday. The trial was initially postponed after Pasile’s legal representative requested time to study the docket.
Pasile has been charged with murder and defeating the ends of justice. This was after he allegedly murdered and dismembered Nosicelo Mtebeni in August earlier this year.
The dismembered body of the 23-year old Fort Hare University law student was found in a suitcase left on the street in East London. Mtebeni's Fellow students have expressed their disappointment at the pace at which the case has proceeded, but say that they want justice to be served.
Although many of them were unable to make it to the court appearance due to exams, one of the SRC leaders, Nandenathi Imethi said that they are still aggrieved by the loss of their fellow students.
Today her classmates are writing their first paper and will be graduating in May and that dream will not be realised by her family. And we are emotionally hurt that justice has not been served and the family is still in pain.
She added that Nosicelo was one of the excelling students among her classmates and would even go as far as providing assistance to some of them.
One of the leaders from the Masimanyane Women’s Group echoed the same sentiments, saying that justice in South Africa is not doing enough to protect women.
She added that, cases of Gender-Based Violence have a common occurrence of delays and missing dockets and that it is likely for this case to follow along the same route.
The murder case has since been remanded for 29 November 2021 at the East London High Court.
