Judgment expected in Usindiso fire matter after delays
Updated Aug. 12, 2026, 11:49 a.m. | By JacarandaFM Newswatch Judgment is expected to be delivered in the case against Sithembiso Mdlalose, who is accused of…
The Full Story
Updated Aug. 12, 2026, 11:49 a.m. | By JacarandaFM Newswatch
Judgment is expected to be delivered in the case against Sithembiso Mdlalose, who is accused of starting the 2023 blaze that claimed over 70 lives in the Johannesburg CBD.
The matter sat briefly in the High Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, where it was postponed for transfer back to the High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court.
Mdlalose faces 76 counts of murder after the blaze resulted in the deaths of 76 people at the hijacked building back in August 2023.
The accused was arrested in 2024 after confessing to starting the fire at the Usindiso building Commission of Inquiry.
READ: Former Usindiso residents shocked at neighbour’s arrest for arson
He claimed to have choked a man in a ground-floor room and used petrol to burn the body to cover up the murder; the blaze later spread to other rooms.
However, during the trial, he recanted his earlier statement, claiming that he was forced to make a false confession by an unknown Tanzanian drug lord.
WITNESS RECALLS FALL FROM FIFTH FLOOR
Speaking through a translator, Tholakele Zondo said she had been sleeping with her family when neighbours alerted her to the fire.
Zondo took the stand during trial proceedings last year.
“People were screaming in different languages that there was a fire. I couldn’t see the fire, and there was no smoke [on the third floor].”
With no way of reaching the main entrance on the bottom floor, Zondo recalled how she lost sight of her two teenage children and her husband as she tried to escape to the top of the building with her four-year-old daughter.
She met four Tanzanian males who tried to help her, but she slipped and fell one floor down from the fifth floor and became unconscious.
“At first, I couldn’t see that I was injured. They woke me, and I could hear my child crying. The men left and returned with a blanket, which they said they would help me reach the fight floor with. But I refused, and I feared she would fall again.”
She said the men pleaded with her to try, but she still refused until they walked away, and she was left alone with her child.
Zondo, who struggled to hold back the tears as she testified, said when help finally arrived, she and other survivors were met with the image of dozens of bodies lying covered on the street.
She said she still could not fathom that most of her neighbours died such a gruesome death.
In 2023, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi established the commission to investigate the circumstances of the August inferno in Marshalltown.
He announced retired Constitutional Court Justice Sisi Khampepe as its chairperson.
Part A of the commission dealt with the fire incident, its cause, and who, if anyone, must be held accountable for the death of the victims and those who sustained injuries.
Part B dealt with the investigation into the prevalence of buildings abandoned by their legitimate owners and taken over by criminal syndicates or other group…