The murder in Rhodesia of Bishop Adolph Schmitt, Father Possenti Weggartner and Sister Maria Francis Van den Berg, and the wounding of Sister Ermenfried Knauer, on 5 December 1976, has been blamed by the Smith regime onto guerillas of the nationalist movement ANC (ZAPU), led by Joshua Nkomo. The four Catholic missionaries were ambushed and attacked by a single armed man as they were driving from Gwaai siding to the main Victoria Falls road in the Lupane area of north-western Rhodesia.
Nationalist leaders themselves have condemned this and other atrocities, and suggested that they were the work of the regime's Selous Scouts, a paramilitary unit under the direct control of the Prime Minister's office and believed to contain a high percentage of foreign mercenaries. There is some evidence to support this: one unusual feature of the Lupane killings, for example, was that they were apparently the work of one man, whereas as a general rule guerillas of the nationalist movement operate in small groups. In the absence, as yet, of alternative accounts of events to those put forward by the regime's security forces, it is virtually impossible to establish what really did happen in this and other incidents in the war zones. Events subsequent to the Lupane ambush, however, while they may shed relatively little light on who actually perpetrated the killings, do present a number of strange and unconvincing features, consistent with a desire on the part of the Rhodesian police to pin responsibility onto the nationalist movement.
On 31 December 1976 a 26 year old man, named as Albert Sumbo Ncube, whom the police alleged to have been responsible for a whole series of murders and acts of robbery and sabotage including the killing of the 3 Catholic missionaries, appeared before the Bulawayo Magistrates Court. He was not asked to plead, and does not appear to have been formally charged before being remanded to 14 January. The purpose of the hearing, which according to press reports was in public at Ncube's own request, was to allow the Acting Senior Prosecutor to apply to the Court for confirmation that certain admissions by Ncube had been made freely and voluntarily. These admissions, which the Court was told had been written out by Ncube by hand in his own language and then translated into English, described his recruitment into the nationalist movement in Johannesburg in 1973, his guerilla training in Tanzania, and his re-entry into Rhodesia across the Zambian border, with 4 other guerillas.
In addition, he claimed responsibility for: * the murder of Mr. Robert Calvert, who was killed when a group of guerillas attacked Peter's Motel at Victoria Falls on 30 October 1976. * the murder of a farmer, Mr. Arthur Ross Cumming, at his home, France Farm, 12 miles south of Victoria Falls, on 8 November. * placing and detonating landmines on the Bulawayo to Zambia railway line at Masui Bridge south of Victoria Falls on 2 November and 1 December. Ncube said that around the end of November he split off from the group and began to operate alone, moving south-east in the direction of the railway line towards Bulawayo. * a robbery at Gwaai siding store and the attempted murder of Mr. John Hartley on 27 November. * the murder of the 3 Catholic missionaries and the attempted murder of a fourth, on 5 December. * an attempted robbery at Forestvale Butchery, Bulawayo, and the murder of a coloured solidier, Lance-corporal Charlie McLeod at Umhambi Cocktail Bar, and of Mr. Austin Nyhati at Ikhwezi Club, Bulawayo, on 11 December. * attempted robbery at Makalanga Beer Garden, Bulawayo, on 19 December. * attempted murder of a Portuguese shop-owner, Mr. Antonio Camacho, and robbery at his store in Pelandaba township, Bulawayo, on 22 December.
Ncube told the Provincial Magistrate that nobody had influenced him to admit to the murders and other guerilla acts. He told the Court that the statements recorded by the police were correct. The Magistrate then confirmed the statements and told Ncube that they would be received as evidence "before any court" upon their mere production by the Prosecutor and without further proof.
The all-inclusive character of Ncube's confession seems odd in view of the fact that he was apparently only arrested on the day before his court appearance. In a statement issued on the morning of 31 December, the police claimed that he had been picked up in Mabutweni African township, Bulawayo, on 30 December. The case was thus brought before the Provincial Magistrate with surprising speed, given the present congestion in the Rhodesian courts. As a general rule, it is several weeks and even months before a detained person is formally charged and brought to trial in Law and Order (Maintenance) Act cases.
The Court, however, was never given an opportunity to cross-examine Ncube, because a week later he was reported to have "escaped" from custody and to be on the run. According to police statements a few days after his court appearance he had been moved from Bulawayo to a prison in Victoria Falls, over 200 miles away in the north-western corner of Rhodesia close to the Zambian border. Here he was able to assist the police with investigations into the attack on Peter's Motel on 30 October. On the morning of 8 January, according to the Rhodesian press, "shots were heard in the town soon after 8am as Albert Sumbo Ncube ran through gardens and jumped over hedges wearing a pair of red underpants and an orange shirt." According to a police source, Ncube had escaped as he was being given breakfast by two African policemen. "One of the jailers was armed and stood guard while the other, unarmed, unbolted the cell door. Ncube, who had been shackled with handcuffs and leg irons, charged the door before the unarmed policeman holding his breakfast could enter his cell. Both policemen were knocked off balance, and Ncube, who must earlier have snapped the chains linking his shackles, was able to race through the Police station, vanishing in thick bush across the main Victoria Falls road. The policemen who chased him were not able to shoot immediately, because there were some children in the line of fire."
A "massive manhunt" was immediately launched by the Rhodesian army, airforce and police, using helicopters, spotter planes and dogs and moving westwards in the direction of Kazangula. Despite the fact that the hunted man was believed to be still wearing his broken leg irons, he was still successfully evading capture 12 days later. Footprints, believed to be his, were found at an early stage of the search on the south bank of the Zambezi, and police suggested that he could have crossed the river into Zambia. According to the police: "It is heartbreaking because our capture of this killer was a tremendous morale booster... All the normal precuations were taken and it was just one of those things." The Ministry of Law and Order has since given an assurance that any person or persons found to have acted negligently "will be severely dealt with." The Rhodesian Front caucus has demanded a full explanation of the circumstances of Ncube's escape and it is likely that the matter will be raised in the House of Assembly. It is hard to avoid suspecting that there was a degree of police collusion in Ncube's escape, and casting doubt on the circumstances of his "confession."
