Judge to make ruling on confessions in Senzo Meyiwa murder trial on Thursday

The murder case against five men accused of killing former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa is set to resume on Thursday.

The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria will deliver its ruling on the trial-within-a-trial after hearing closing arguments from the state and defence on Monday.

Trial-within-a-trial

Since October 2023, the court has heard evidence in a trial-within-a-trial to determine the admissibility of confession statements that Bongani Ntanzi and his co-accused, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya had allegedly made into the main trial.

The state has claimed Ntanzi made a confession about his alleged involvement in Meyiwa’s murder before Colonel Moholo Solomon Raphadu at the Moroka Police Station in Soweto on 19 June 2020.

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Five days later, the second confession statement was taken down by Magistrate Vivian Cronje in the presence of his then lawyer at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court.

Sibiya made his alleged confession at Diepkloof Police Station on the day of his arrest on 30 May 2020 and additionally carried out a pointing out exercise of the crime scene in Vosloorus on 5 June 2020.

But the defence has argued their clients were tortured and assaulted into signing the prepared confessions.

Ruling

During proceedings, Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng confirmed that he will deliver his ruling on Thursday after having considered all the evidence and submissions by the state and the defence.

“This court has to review the evidence, consider the evidence and determine whether the state which carries the burden to prove that the statements, confessions and pointing out allegedly by accused one and two were made freely and voluntarily in their sober and sane senses without any coercion as determined in Section 35(f) of our Constitution,” the judge said.

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The ruling, however, won’t be “a full-blooded judgment”, Mokgoatlheng pointed out.

“It will be a ruling and such a ruling by its nature as determined by convention and the law is relative and not final because at this juncture, this court is not seized with the rest of the evidence.

“This court can’t determine at this stage how that evidence, which is going to be led by the state and if it is led by the defence in rebuttal, is going to impact, affect, diminish [or] increase the evidence that will be led in the merits of the case.

“Only after this court has heard the other evidence will this court be in a position to join the evidence which was heard in the trial-in-a-trial and that which was heard within the merits and draw a joint judgment which incorporates both of these exigencies,” he explained.

Closing arguments

Earlier, defence lawyer, Sipho Ramosepele made his closing arguments before the court.

Describing the circumstances surrounding Sibiya’s arrest, Ramosepele argued that the prolonged use of handcuffs was a means of torture.

“He was in those tightly squeezed handcuffs for eight hours plus,” the defence lawyer said.

“Accused number one says my hands were swollen and he was bleeding from the hands. It was not little bits or droplets of blood.”

Ramosepele informed the court that the accused was not informed of his constitutional rights.

READ MORE: Senzo Meyiwa trial: Accused ‘did not sleep’ before making confession, says defence

The attorney also argued that Ntanzi, who was arrested on 16 June 2020, experienced “torture” at the hands of the police as he was deprived of sleep on the day of his first confession.

It was heard in court that Ntanzi was booked out for at least 17 hours on 18 June, when the accused was transported to his former workplace in North West.

The accused was returned to his holding cells in the early hours of 19 June and only rested just under three hours before he was taken to Moroka Police Station.

Watch the trial below:

In his reply, state prosecutor George Baloyi disputed the defence’s arguments.

“It must be shown that a fundamental right as entrenched in the bill of rights has been infringed. The weight of the evidence in our submission is that the statements were not obtained in a manner that violates any right in the Constitution,” Baloyi said.

The prosecutor added: “Mr Ramosepele submitted that the sleep deprivation and the detention of accused number two under the circumstances he described amounted to torture [but] in our submission, there’s no evidence that there was a deliberate act to influence the will of the accused.”