As a truck driver stopped to drop off a young woman hitchhiker, four gunmen emerged from the bushes and held him and his assistant captive for about 10 hours, the Pietermaritzburg high court heard yesterday.

As a truck driver stopped to drop off a young woman hitchhiker, four gunmen emerged from the bushes and held him and his assistant captive for about 10 hours, the Pietermaritzburg high court heard yesterday.

The woman accomplice lured truck drivers into the gang's ambush. The truck was carrying 34 tons of liquor from Durban to Gauteng.

She asked to be dropped off at an off-ramp near Mooi River where the hijackers were waiting to pounce, the court was told during the trial of alleged hijack kingpin Jackson Khumalo.

Khumalo faces charges of the murder of another driver, Johannes de Witt, who was shot dead soon after he dropped off a young woman near Howick.

Describing their 10-hour ordeal, driver's assistant Richard Ntombela said the gunmen forced him and driver Jacob Zuma under the beds behind the seats of the truck at 10pm on September 20 2004. - Sapa