Police have some explaining to do

For more than seven years, the police investigation into the murder of Bafana Bafana football star Senzo Meyiwa went nowhere. Suddenly, five men were arrested and brought to court.

There has always been something distinctly off-kilter about the whole story, with many asking whether there may have been some attempted cover-up by the police. That’s because one of those people in the Vosloorus house that evening in October 2014, was singing star Kelly Khumalo, Meyiwa’s girlfriend.

Now, as the case is unfolding in the High Court in Pretoria, there have been allegations that Khumalo may have been involved in the shooting – an allegation she and her lawyers have vehemently denied. The accusation was made first by defence lawyer Malasela Teffo, who claimed the police had opened two different investigation dockets about the killing.

The initial case docket recorded that Meyiwa had been shot by suspects fleeing the house after committing an armed robbery.

The second docket – tellingly, it was opened almost five years after the killing as public pressure mounted – laid the blame for the murder at the feet of Khumalo and others in the house, accusing them of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by concocting a false narrative.

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This second docket was only presented to the defence – and to the state prosecutor – during proceedings yesterday. Why was that?

This is looking more and more like investigators shuffling theories and evidence around to construct a certain narrative – and then hoping the second docket would go away quietly.

The case has been postponed so the defence can consider their position, once they have more information on the second docket, and why it was never produced in the first place. Whatever the truth, there is a lot of explaining the police and the National Prosecuting Authority must do.