The matter has baffled legal minds within the judiciary as they wonder how on earth they ended up with something like this. Not even the learned presiding Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela seemed to have found neither joy nor comfort in the defence council’s Adv Malesela Teffo’s oratory about the violations of his client’s human rights.
The second case docket it seems is nothing more than a duplicate copy of the same docket as the one under which the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial is being pursued by the Pretoria High Court.
According to Teffo, the case cannot continue in its present state unless the judge abandons the current trial and strike the case off the roll and set the accused in the trial free.
He argued that two case dockets were opened and as a result, the case ended up being investigated by two teams of investigators. Each of the two teams was pursuing two different theories as to what led to the death of Meyiwa.
In one incident, investigators called for the seven people who were with the deceased on the night he was shot to account for what happened. The indictment calls for the seven to be arrested and charged with perjury and murder, among the listed charges.
Statements submitted by witnesses allegedly refute claims that the Khumalo family home was raided by criminals on the evening of October 26. No resident in the immediate neighbourhood claimed to have seen anyone coming running into or running away from the Khumalo home.
Meanwhile, the other investigation is pursuing a different theory that Meyiwa was shot and killed during a botched home burglary and that his killer and his accomplices are among the five accused appearing at the Pretoria High Court.
Teffo and his team have asked for the docket to remain in which the seven people who were in the house to stand trial for perjury, defeating the ends of justice and perhaps even murder.
It seems evidence suggests that the death of the celebrated former Bafana Bafana national soccer star was covered up by the seven.
Teffo disclosed that it was Kelly Khumalo who shot Meyiwa that night, by mistake.
This was Adv Zanele Mshololo, who defends accused number five, had disarmed the crime scene forensic expert’s testimony who denied the crime scene was contaminated by the time he arrived almost four hours later.
The defence counsel maintains that the crime scene had been tampered with.
Mshololo emphasised that the forensics expert missed vital clues at the scenes. One of these was where Senzo is alleged to have died.
Teffo pleaded that the State had no case again his clients and that, together with the fifth accused, they should all be allowed to go home.
“Why keep my clients in detention if there is a second docket, which suggests that all the people who were with Meyiwa inside the house when he was shot should be brought to this court to explain what happened?”
It is, however, still early days in the trial.
