Cop says Senzo Meyiwa murder suspect’s confession wasn’t recorded

The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria heard on Friday the confession of one of the five men charged with the murder of former Orlando Pirates goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was not recorded.

State witness, retired Colonel Mhlanganyelwa Moses Mbotho testified in “a trial within a trial”, which took place to determine the admissibility of accused one, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya’s confession statement as evidence.

Mbotho testified he took down the accused’s confession on the night of his arrest on 30 May 2020 at Diepkloof Police Station.

The officer indicated that Sibiya looked sober when he made the statement, in which the suspect admitted he wasn’t threatened or assaulted to make the confession.

The statement was handed over by Mbotho to Brigadier Bongani Gininda, the lead investigator of Meyiwa’s murder case, the next day.

Confession not recorded

Under defence lawyer, attorney Sipho Ramosepele’s cross-examination on Friday, Mbotho revealed there were no video or audio clips of the confession as the interview wasn’t recorded.

“No, [not at all],” Mbotho said.

Ramosepele said his client claimed there were many police officers, including Gininda, who brought him to the police station.

Mbotho, in his response, said only one officer, Nakedi Thapelo Monareng, from the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD), brought him to the office he was in with Sibiya.

“I did say I didn’t expect that the EMPD officer who brought the suspect into the station was alone. My experience tells me he would have been with other officers, but I never saw them.

“If Brigadier Gininda was there then he hid himself from me because I never saw him. If Brigadier Gininda was there, I would have given him the confession. I was not going to take it to the [Randburg] office with me.”

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The officer denied there was another room at the station, where Sibiya claimed to have been assaulted.

“There is one entrance at Diepkloof … there is no other room outside so that one I deny my Lord,” the witness said.

He pointed out the suspect did not tell him about any assault incident during their interview.

“I asked him about the assault, but he didn’t say anything. He can’t say he forgot because I asked him.”

Watch the trial below:

‘Far from the truth’

Mbotho also said it was “far from the truth” that Sibiya’s assault halted when he showed up to the room and also denied that he threatened the suspect to sign the confession statement.

“If he says I stepped into the room that means I found him inside being assaulted, but there [was] nobody in that room … I was alone. The room was arranged for me. He is the one who came with [Monareng] while I was inside and then the policeman went out so there is nothing like that.”

Ramosepele told the witness that his client was assaulted and suffocated with a plastic bag by the police in Tembisa, Vosloorus and Diepkloof.

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The defence lawyer insisted that Sibiya made the confession because he feared for his life.

“He then relented and agreed to sign those documents,” Ramosepele said.

But Mbotho said if Sibiya was assaulted by the police in three different stations, the suspect wouldn’t be able to walk.

“The police can’t assault a person three times and then he comes into the office walking. That is not true, my Lord. He would have come by ambulance if he was assaulted like that.”

The officer said the fact that every page of the confession statement was initialed proved that he interviewed Sibiya “step-by-step”.

New witness

Meanwhile, Monareng was then called to take to the witness stand.

He testified that he transported Sibiya to Diepkloof on 30 May 2020, alongside with Constable Nkosingiphile Maphumulo.

Monareng, who now works for the police’s VIP Protection Unit, told the court they did not make a stop anywhere else.

The witness also denied Ramosepele’s notion that he was present when Sibiya was arrested in Tembisa.

Meyiwa was fatally shot by what the state alleges were armed intruders at the Vosloorus family home of his then girlfriend, singer Kelly Khumalo, on 26 October 2014.

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