A man in shorts and a white T-shirt, moving from table to table and glued to his phone. That’s the figure a police witness says was watching AKA inside Wish restaurant in Durban on the night the rapper was gunned down.
On Friday, October 23, Rajen Sanders told the Durban High Court that the man in the CCTV footage is Lindokuhle Ndimande, one of seven men on trial for the killings.
According to SABC News, Sanders testified that Ndimande sat with a clear view of AKA’s table while the rapper ate with his entourage.
Sanders said he downloaded the recordings and watched them repeatedly before making the identification, TimesLIVE reported.
He also identified Ndimande as the person seen getting out of a car linked to fellow accused Mziwethemba Gwabeni near the venue.
The footage tracked Ndimande’s movements between Wish and the nearby AuthentiQ restaurant. Daily Sun reported that he changed tables several times, allegedly to get a better look at AKA, before staying on a call right up until the shooting.
When the shots rang out, the footage placed him inside Wish. He then stood up, still on his phone, paid his bill by card and walked out.
AKA’s friend Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane had earlier been sitting with friends at AuthentiQ, a restaurant Ndimande was also seen entering.
Ndimande tells a very different story. During his 2024 bail application, he denied being a spotter and said he was at Wish waiting for a woman he was meant to meet on a date, Daily Sun reported.
By his account, the repeated calls were simply him trying to reach her after she didn’t show up. That version now sits squarely against the prosecution’s reading of the same footage.
Prosecutor Lawrence Gcaba said he plans to submit records from that bail application, where Ndimande acknowledged being at Wish.
The state appears set to use his own admission to anchor him at the scene, while the defence is likely to lean on his explanation for why he was there.
AKA, real name Kiernan Forbes, was 35 when he and Tibz were shot dead outside Wish on Durban’s Florida Road on February 10, 2023. The killings shook South African hip hop and left fans demanding answers for well over two years.
The trial opened on October 5, and Friday’s session pulled the court back into the restaurants on that night.
All seven accused have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, and firearm and ammunition offences.
For fans who have followed the case since 2023, the CCTV testimony is the closest the public has come to seeing how the night allegedly unfolded inside.
Ndimande’s date story, though, means the meaning of those same frames is still very much in dispute.
The court adjourned until Monday, when Sanders is due back on the stand to keep walking through the video footage.
