The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has poured cold water on the legitimacy of the controversial second docket in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial.
This after the NPA said on Tuesday that it would divulge to the public its decision on the matter once the trial of the first and initial docket concludes.
Said NPA spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana in a statement on Wednesday: “[Director of public prosecutions] DPP [Pretoria] has indicated that the decision in this docket will be taken after the conclusion of the current trial, as credibility findings that might have been made by the trial court against the witnesses who were in the house at the time of the incident will have to be taken into account.”
According to the corruption watchdog, the two officials who deposed the second docket in 2019, five years after Meyiwa was killed, were frustrated by the impasse, and assumed that the people who were in the house at the time of the shooting were concealing evidence.
“Those police officers were apparently frustrated by the lack of progress in the investigation and probably thought that the six witnesses who were in the house when the incident happened were not truthful when they mentioned that the attackers intruded in the house.
“They apparently thought that the witnesses were concealing the truth about the true identity of the killer of Mr Senzo Meyiwa as such killer(s) could not be identified or found. A wrong suspect was also pointed out during an identification parade.
“However, a breakthrough came in May 2020 when the current accused were identified. So the initial suspicion that the two police officers had, were superseded by the identification of the suspects in this case in May 2020 and their subsequent arrest,” Mahanjana said.
The two dockets came under scrutiny during advocate Malesela Teffo’s cross-examination of forensic officer Thabo Mosia in June.
Teffo insisted that the docket, which was deposed by Lt-Col Joyce Buthelezi and Warrant Officer Meshack Makhubo, listed seven witnesses found at the crime scene as suspects who should be charged with the murder of the late Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana goalkeeper.
Teffo told the court that according to the docket, Longwe Twala, Kelly Khumalo, her mother Gladness, and sister Zandi ought to have faced charges, adding that the gun that killed Meyiwa was brought to the house by Twala.
Teffo said the docket charged the accused with murder and defeating the ends of justice.
At the time, the NPA said the docket held no merit. The Pretoria High Court heard that the director of public prosecutions in the South Gauteng division never made a decision to charge the people who were at Khumalo’s mother’s house in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg, where Meyiwa was shot dead on October 26 2014.
According to the NPA, the docket was an internal opinion by a junior advocate and the DPP maintains that the docket does not have any status.
“The alleged documents did not have any status, as such was an internal opinion from a junior state advocate which was without merit,” according to a letter from the NPA that was read out in court.
The trial will resume in September.
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