GQ man found guilty of fatal shooting of Sergeant Mario Nel

When Sergeant Mario Nel kissed his wife Ammarentia goodbye on May 3 last year, she could never have imagined that just hours later he would be gunned down and left to die in a pool of blood.

Looking down at her ring finger and twisting her wedding ring, Ammarentia told a Gqeberha High Court judge about the devastation and trauma Nel's murder had caused his family.

Equally devastated were his colleagues, including his partner, Sergeant Milissa Seaman, who brought his bag home later that day.

“My husband’s lunch was still in his bag. His lunch and his jersey,” Ammarentia recalled.

She told the court that her husband's killer, Andile Nyoka, had been taunting her and her family by smirking or smiling at them since his first appearance in court.

“In fact, he is doing it right now,” Ammarentia said from the dock as he testified for his reduced sentence.

On Thursday, Judge Fungile Dotwana ruled that 27-year-old Nyoka attacked Nel from behind at around 9:00 a.m. and snatched his service pistol.

While Nel was wrestling with Nyoka to regain possession of his weapon, a shot was fired and hit him in the head.

He was also found guilty of later getting into a taxi, threatening the driver and passengers with Nel's service pistol, and then using it in a brazen shootout with police.

Ammarentia said when she left the house at 6:30 a.m. to pick up some of her children from daycare, Nel opened the gate and came back to give her a kiss goodbye.

She assumed that he then left work as usual.

At around 9:30 a.m., as Ammarentia was teaching her preschool class, one of the teachers told her that her mother was urgently trying to reach her.

When she got to her cell phone at the office, she noticed a flood of calls and messages from family members.

As she was about to reply to her brother-in-law, Luzaan called and inquired about her husband's whereabouts.

She told him that Nel usually let her know when he would arrive at work around 9:00 a.m. and that he was probably busy.

“Then I called my mother, who told me that my husband had been shot. I remember putting the phone in her ear.

“I wanted to call my husband, but he didn’t answer the phone.”

When Ammarentia couldn't reach Nel, she simply got in her car and headed to court, constantly trying to reach him by phone.

She also called two of his colleagues, but without success.

On the way to Motherwell, Ammerentia's brother caught her and told her to meet him at home and he would drive her there.

“When I think about it now, I was in no condition to drive.”

Back at the house, Ammarentia's brother confirmed that Nel had been shot, but no further details were available.

“I collapsed in his arms and started crying.”

As the two were on their way to Motherwell, one of Nel's colonels ordered her to stay away from the courtroom, and she complied.

“When we got home, there were police vehicles and police officers in front of the house.

“They stood there with their heads buried in their chests.”

In the house, a colonel gave her the devastating news that Nel had been shot and died.

“I couldn’t breathe.

“It felt like my soul had left my body. I was numb.”

Although the couple did not have any children during their two-year marriage, they spent every other weekend with Nel's two sons, who live in Gqeberha.

He left behind three sons and a daughter, whom he supported emotionally and financially.

Despite Nel's death, Ammarentia kept the visitation schedule for his sons.

When prosecutor Dail Andrews asked Nel what effect her husband's death had had on her personally, she said: “For the first few months I couldn't eat anything and I lost a huge amount of weight.”

“Until today I have hardly slept.”

She also told the court that she and Nel were inseparable and that she could not bear the burden of their shared financial responsibilities.

Ammarentia described Nyoka as an arrogant person who showed no remorse towards his family.

She accused him of mocking her and acting as if he deserved a reward for his actions.

“I don't think I can ever forgive him.

“He didn't just kill Sergeant Mario Nel. He took my husband, a father of four, his parents' first-born child, his younger sibling's older brother, and everything we stood for.”

“Because of a man who felt the need to play God and end another's life, all we have left are memories.”

Nyoka's legal representative, lawyer Jodene Coertzen of Legal Aid SA, was moved to tears by Ammarentia's testimony.

In tears, she told the court that as a former soldier in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), she could empathise with the “trauma of the family of the deceased and his colleagues”.

“My condolences go out to you. I know what it's like to lose a colleague.”

Andrews asked the court to impose the mandatory life sentence on the murder charge.

He called for a harsher sentence of 20 years instead of the mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison for robbery with aggravating circumstances.

Andrews said the fact that Nel was shot in full police uniform while on duty in a court of law was an aggravating circumstance.

“He has shown no remorse. Instead, he smiles happily and poses when the media takes a photo of him.

“He seems proud of himself for killing a police officer and acts as if he had won the Nobel Peace Prize or the lottery.”

Andrews described the statistics on the number of police officers killed in the country as “shocking”, adding that Nel was more than just a statistic.

“He was a diligent and hard-working member of the SAPS. A family man.

“Even the prisoners he transported from St. Albans Prison to court said he always treated them with respect.

“Sergeant Nel was deprived of the opportunity to live his life to the fullest, to further impact the lives of his children and to make a significant impact on society,” he said.

Nyoka will be sentenced on Friday.