A 43-year-old former Glebelands hostel resident looked terrified when he fingered a former police officer, Louis Mdweshu, as one of four men involved in an attack on him and others in 2014 in the Umlazi township, south of Durban.

The man, who cannot be named for security reasons, testified in the trial of Mdweshu and his co-accused, Khayelihle Mbuthuma, 28, Vukani Mcobothi, 30, Eugene Hlophe, 45, Ncomekile Ntshangase, 34, Mbuyiselwa Mkhize, 29, Mondli Mthethwa, 29, and Bongani Mbele, 33. 

The eight are facing murder and attempted murder charges linked to the notorious Glebelands hostel, where they allegedly ran a syndicate demanding cash for beds.

The witness survived a 2014 attack at the hostel which the state says was carried out by all the men, except Mthethwa and Mbele.

The man told the court he was standing near a tuck shop and garage with another resident. He said while the tuckshop owner was talking, bullets were fired in their direction.

"I started running and I ran between the garage and the tuck shop," he said.

He told the court that after he had taken cover, he saw a man he knew fleeing the scene with a rifle.

Throughout his testimony, the man made no eye contact with the eight accused, except for a few moments when senior state advocate Dorian Paver asked him to point at the person he saw fleeing the scene after the incident.

The man said he knew it was Mdweshu who was fleeing the scene because he recognised his hat.

"There was a hat he liked wearing. It was a brown DH bucket hat. He was limping when he was running away and was carrying a rifle," said the man.

Mdweshu's lawyer, advocate Martin Krog, tore into the witness, asking why he told police, or anyone for that matter, only three years after the incident that he had seen Mdweshu flee the scene.

The man said it was because he was waiting for police to come to him.

"So for some number of years you kept it to yourself and waited for the police to come to you. I put two hypothesis to you: You are either falsely implicating accused one, or you are mistaken," said Krog.

Krog also questioned why the man did not report what he saw to the police officers who arrived on the scene after the incident.

"I did not trust the police who attended the scene," he replied.

The trial, which has entered its second week, was heard in an unusually empty gallery after judge Nkosinathi Chili ruled it would be heard in closed court.

This came after the lead investigator, Col Bhekumuzi Sikhakhane, told the court on Monday that there were concerns about the safety of witnesses after they testified.

According to media reports, Sikhakhane, who is from the KwaZulu-Natal organised crime unit, also revealed that several people who were supposed to be state witnesses had been killed over the years, hence the need for the matter to be heard in camera.

The trial resumes on Wednesday.