Court allows state to reopen case in Marshalltown building fire that killed 76

The state has been granted permission to reopen its case against the man accused of setting the fire that destroyed the Usindiso building in Marshalltown and killed 76 people.

Judge permits narrow reopening over identity discrepancies

At the Palm Ridge High Court in Johannesburg, Judge Cassim Moosa granted the state’s application to reopen its case after discrepancies emerged concerning the identities of some of the deceased. The case was reopened specifically to clarify questions about the identification of victims, pathologist findings and photographic evidence.

“It is the considered view of this court that if this application were not to succeed, it would be a travesty of justice, not only to both the parties, but to the victims as well as their relatives, the surviving relatives,”

the judge said, adding,

“And at the end of the day, as was stated in the case of R v Hepworth, this is simply not a game.”

Moosa confined the state to three questions when it returns to court and granted the application “on narrow grounds and narrow terms” to allow clarification on the identity of the deceased, the pathologist’s findings and the photographic evidence.

The accused and the charges

Sithembiso Lawrence Mdlalose is charged with 76 counts of murder, as well as attempted murder, arson and defeating the ends of justice. He has pleaded not guilty.

During proceedings, Mdlalose clashed with his advocate, Leonard Cindi, after the state sought to reopen its case. He rose to address the judge out of turn, stormed out when the matter was adjourned and later returned to ask Cindi whether he was still representing him.

Background to the blaze and inquiry findings

The fire gutted the five-storey Usindiso building in Marshalltown in the early hours of 31 August 2023. The blaze claimed the lives of 76 people; 12 of the dead were children.

The building was constructed in 1954 by the Johannesburg municipality as a pass office. It was later managed by the Joburg Property Company and was taken over by Usindiso Ministries, which ran it as a shelter for abused women for 10 years before the building was abandoned in 2017. By the time of the fire the property had been divided into rooms rented to hundreds of people.

A commission of inquiry chaired by retired Constitutional Court justice Sisi Khampepe investigated the fire and found that the City of Johannesburg and the Joburg Property Company bore part of the responsibility. The commission said the death toll would have been lower had the city met its legal duties as owner and municipality.

Confession, withdrawal and outstanding issues

On 23 January 2024, Mdlalose told the Khampepe commission that he had implicated himself, saying he had doused a body in petrol and set it alight; the commission then ordered that he be taken to a magistrate to put the confession in writing. He later withdrew the confession and pleaded not guilty.

Mr Cindi has argued that the confession should be excluded because police did not test Mdlalose for drugs before taking it and therefore could not show he was sober at the time.

According to the reporting, several of the bodies recovered from the building remain unidentified and are likely to be buried as paupers. A final judgment in the criminal case has been delayed since May. The matter is due to resume on Wednesday.