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- Two men have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the former dean of the University of Zululand, Professor Gregory Kamwendo.
- Oscar Mkhuliseni Mthiyane and Selby Nkuna shot and killed Kamwendo in front of his home in Empangeni.
- At the time, it was speculated that the murder could be related to irregularities in the awarding of doctoral degrees.
Two men have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the former dean of the University of Zululand, Professor Gregory Kamwendo.
Kamwendo, 53, was shot at his home in Empangeni on May 22, 2018. At around 5:15 p.m., Kamwendo parked his vehicle in front of a flat on Durford Road. While in the vehicle, two men shot him and killed him, said police spokesman Capt. Nqobile Gwala.
“He suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body and was pronounced dead at the scene,” Gwala said.
Kamwendo was serving as dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Zululand at the time of the shooting.
He has served at the university since 2016 following his tenure as dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
At the time, it was widely reported that Kamwendo was assassinated after allegedly discovering a fraudulent PhD syndicate at the institution. However, the university denied this in a statement and said vital facts had been misrepresented.
The university said the allegedly erroneous reports were aimed at damaging the reputation of both Kamwendo and the institution.
He said that Kamwendo did not carry out any investigation into the alleged award of bogus PhD degrees.
However, the university acknowledged that for the 2017-18 term the senior committee and the senate “found that some of the dissertations presented did not meet the imperatives of the policy.”
This resulted in the establishment of disciplinary proceedings against the supervisors and the academic staff involved.
The university said it believed that Kamwendo may have been the victim of staff members who “continued to undermine leadership through gangster tendencies.”
In November 2018, investigating officers made a breakthrough and linked the two defendants, Oscar Mkhuliseni Mthiyane, 53, and Selby Nkuna, 49, to the case.
“They were tried and appeared several times until they were sentenced. The investigation carried out revealed that Nkuna was a professor who worked in the same institution as the deceased,” Gwala said.
