Pretoria - Despite all the shocking revelations that have been made since the trial of the five men accused of killing Senzo Meyiwa started in April, AfriForum still feels confident that the right people who murdered the soccer star have been arrested.
Meyiwa was murdered at his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s Vosloorus home in October 2014 during an alleged botched robbery. He was shot in the back.
In 2019, the Meyiwa family approached AfriForum after losing hope that the case will ever be solved.
The lobby group was willing to privately prosecute the matter until five men accused of Meyiwa’s murder were eventually arrested in 2021.
Shocking revelations have been made since the trial started three weeks ago; the court also heard how police ineptly handled the scene where Meyiwa was shot dead.
“What we are seeing here is a full display of police incompetence, of poor handling of a crime scene. We saw it in the very beginning, we knew it was the case, now we are getting to the point where it’s all coming out in the trial,” said AfriForum’s spokesperson Barry Bateman.
On Wednesday, the murder trial was postponed when the court heard there was a second docket that implicates seven people who were present when Meyiwa was shot.
The charges in the second docket are for murder and defeating the ends of justice. People who are witnesses in the first case, are suspects in the second docket.
Defence Advocate Malesela Teffo told the court that while both cases related to Meyiwa’s murder, they had different investigating teams which made different findings in respect to what had transpired and who was responsible.
Bateman said they don’t think the second docket will have an impact on the trial.
“What we are actually concerned (about) is that this second docket does appear that it has information that was not disclosed to the investigative officer.
“And if there was certain information withheld from the State of the investigator, we are concerned that it might derail the prosecution, but we still do believe that the evidence against the five accused remains strong, that there is compelling evidence that links the accused to the murder weapon and to the murder of Senzo Meyiwa,’’ he said.
The second docket implicates Maggie Phiri (who allegedly cleaned the crime scene) Kelly Khumalo (Meyiwa’s girlfriend), Longwe Twala (Zandile Khumalo’s boyfriend), Gladness Khumalo (Kelly’s mother), Zandile Khumalo (Kelly’s sister) and two of Senzo Meyiwa’s friends, Tumelo Madlala and Mthokozisi Twala.
The details of the second docket have yet to be fully ventilated in court.
The trial has been postponed to Monday to allow advocate Zandile Mshololo who represents one of the accused, to study the new docket after she only received it on Wednesday.
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