THE WOMAN accused of shooting the father of her child with an AK-47 rifle will spend the next few days in the holding cells at Westville Prison.
Her violent actions were captured in video that was widely circulated and trended on social media this week.
The Pietermaritzburg woman, who appeared in the video kicking and hitting a man who was lying on the side of a road, was arrested on Tuesday and appeared in the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate Court on Thursday.
Nokulunga Mthethwa, who's believed to be a lifeguard by profession, was charged with attempted murder. The incident happened on Monday at Azalea, Pietermaritzburg.
According to a source, the woman met her former boyfriend, and during a discussion, they had a misunderstanding.
In a tirade, she is alleged to have driven to her current boyfriend's home, which is about 11 km away, and allegedly retrieved the assault rifle from its safe and returned to Azalea. It is believed her current boyfriend works for a security company.
Upon her return, she found the former boyfriend walking with his current girlfriend, and after a verbal exchange, she allegedly shot him several times. In the video that went viral, the woman is heard shouting that the man left their child when the baby was only four months old. She is seen looming over and circling him, kicking him while he is screaming, and hitting him with the butt of the assault rifle.
During the assault, the woman is heard swearing at the bleeding man, who's holding his abdomen and coiled in a foetal position. He sometimes tries to cover his leg.
Later on in the video a man with dreadlocks is seen trying to intervene from a distance, and the woman approaches him, shouting and letting rip of expletives. She also tells the man that she doesn't even know who he is for him wanting to intervene.
In the video clip, the woman is heard screaming, "You treat me with disdain; you left the baby at four months, yet here you are, trying to humiliate me."
The woman is also heard saying that the man keeps accusing her of not wanting him to see the child, yet he's the one who left the baby at four months old and has not maintained the child.
The injured former boyfriend is still receiving treatment in hospital for gunshot wounds.
According to a source who knows the woman well, she is fascinated with guns, and at some point last year, took a gun to work and fired a shot. Her colleagues were not happy with her actions; they laid a complaint about not feeling safe at the workplace; however, their supervisor didn't take any action, said the source.
Mthethwa will return to court on Thursday for a bail hearing.
The Firearms and Control Act of 2000 prohibits ownership and possession of an AK-47 in its fully automatic rifle version; however, special permits for professional use are an exception. The semi-automatic version may be owned legally by individuals in certain disciplines if due processes are followed. It remains one of the most highly regulated assault rifles and is generally not available to civilians.
However, the illegal gun ownership market is awash with hitmen who use it as a weapon of choice for the taxi industry-related killings and political assassinations. Armed robbers and cash-in-transit robbers also prefer the assault rifle and its knockoffs and variants.