THE trial of an alleged rhino poaching syndicate kingpin was postponed in the Ngwelezana Regional Court on Monday.
Dumisani Gwala, who is believed to have been responsible for about 80% of the illegal rhino horn trade in KZN at the time of his arrest in 2014, together with his co-accused Aubrey Dlamini and Wiseman Makeba, appeared briefly before Magistrate Shandu before being released with their current bail conditions intact.
They are due to appear again on 19 September.
Gwala’s newly acquired attorney, Mpumelelo Linda, told the court how she had dropped and broke her phone accidentally while receiving telephonic instructions to defend him two weeks ago.
She said she had only managed to replace the phone and retrieve the messages days later as she was out of town and as a result, was not aware the matter was ready for trial.
Linda was granted the time to adequately prepare for the trial and to take the entire discovery evidence file into consideration.
During a short break, she openly accused ‘someone’ in the public gallery of taking photographs of Gwala with a cell phone without permission.
While she did not point out anyone specifically, she demanded to know from State Advocate Yuri Gangai if any applications had been made to the court to photograph the accused.
While the gallery consisted of activists and journalists from the Zululand Observer (who had made a formal application to the court manager to be allowed in with camera equipment), no one had taken any photographs.
Gwala was arrested in December 2014 after an undercover operation by police.
Photo – Kyle Cowan
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