Pretoria - A third witness in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial is expected to take the stand today.
The trial, presided over by Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria adjourned on Friday with advocate Zandile Mshololo, legal counsel for the fifth accused, stressing that the case was poorly investigated because it was attended to by inexperienced, incompetent police officers.
Mshololo was cross examining the second witness of the trial, Sergeant Patrick Mlungisi Mthethwa, who is attached to the Vosloorus police station.
She told the court that Mthethwa and his colleague had actually gone to the murder scene with two other student constables being trained, but opted to leave the crime scene unguarded.
This was despite Mthethwa indicating that the four police officers had left the scene for the hospital to get more information regarding what had happened at the crime scene, the house of the mother of Meyiwa’s then girlfriend, singer Kelly Khumalo.
Mshololo said the officers had failed to secure the scene even though when they were dispatched they had already been told that a shooting had taken place at the house.
Mthethwa stressed that they had not thought of cordoning off the crime scene during their first visit to the house at around 8.53pm as there was no one to give them information about what had happened, and whether it took place inside or outside the house.
“You had responded to a complaint that there had been a shooting at this house, so what more information did you want?” Mshololo asked.
She further brought it to the court's attention that the officers had failed to take the keys from Themba Khumalo, a relative who they found at the scene, and did not verify his identity.
Mshololo said that, as a result, the officer’s failure to secure the scene before leaving for the hospital had provided an opportunity for the crime scene to be contaminated.
To illustrate this, she read out statements by Sylvia Happy Ngubani and Julia Masia which detailed that they entered the house and had time to clean up the house before the police returned to cordon off the scene.
She also managed to call into question the testimony and evidence of Sergeant Thabo Johannes Mosia, who alleged that the call regarding the murder had been reported four hours later, which may have compromised the scene.
Although Mosia testified that he arrived just after midnight as the address was not known to him, Mthethwa told the court that the forensic expert had actually arrived just after 10pm and before the arrival of Brigadier Philani Ndlovu and a task team.
Mthethwa disputed that Mosia arrived after midnight and said they had met on their return from the hospital, and had left to return to the police station to make their statements just before 12am.
The officer also told the court that unlike Mosia’s indication that it was Ndlovu who assisted him with the pointings-out, it was actually a Captain Zwane, the head of the detectives, who had assisted him first following his arrival at the home.
He insisted that the murder was not reported late as alleged by Mosia, and they had responded promptly following the call and had requested the Client Services Centre at the station to rope in the relevant role players.
Pretoria News