Johannesburg - Police officers who attended the Vosloorus home of Kelly Khumalo, where football star Senzo Meyiwa was shot, only realised on seeing his body that the unattended house was a crime scene.
The admission was made by Vosloorus police Sergeant Timothy Mathebula during re-examination by State prosecutor George Baloyi in the High Court in Pretoria yesterday.
Mathebula was the second officer who responded to the emergency call and visited the Khumalo home in the Mzamo section on October 26, 2014, after the shooting of Meyiwa.
Following his evidence of how he and a fellow colleague, Sergeant Patrick Mlungisi Mthethwa, attended to the scene, he too was taken to task by the legal defence of the five men currently on trial for the murder of Meyiwa about the handling and cordoning off of the scene.
Legal counsel have criticised the officers who first attended the scene for leaving the house unattended, despite it being their duty to ensure that a crime scene was secured to avoid tampering.
Mathebula as well as Mthethwa told the court that they had left the Khumalo house to head to the Botshelong Hospital to gather more information about what had happened.
The officers said they only found Themba Khumalo, Ntombi Khumalo’s brother, upon their arrival at the home, who informed them he did not know what had happened and that those who knew were at the nearby hospital.
They then asked him to lock the house and left the scene.
However, Mathebula explained to Baloyi during the re-examination that it was only after seeing Meyiwa’s body that he realised the house was a crime scene.
“It clicked when we saw Senzo facing upwards to say this was now a crime scene,” he said.
Earlier on, the court also heard how evidence linking the firearm found in the possession of Mthobisi Prince Mncube as the murder weapon used in the fatal 2014 shooting of Meyiwa was still to be presented in court.
The response came after advocate Charles Mnisi, the legal counsel for Mncube, told the court that they wanted to amend his (Mncube’s) plea on Count 4, for unlawful possession of a firearm, to autrefois convict.
He explained that a defendant may enter this plea if he was previously charged with or convicted of the same offence based on essentially the same facts.
“Over and above the plea of not guilty, we are amending our plea to add the plea of autrefois convict in terms of Section 106(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act,” Mnisi said.
Mnisi said the firearm found in Mncube’s possession was the one police witnesses had already testified about, and the case was finalised on July 27, 2017.
In the past few days, State witnesses testified they found Mncube in possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition as they were investigating an Alexandra matter linked to a taxi killing.
“You can’t be charged twice for the same offence. If I am satisfied with what Mnisi is saying, that his client is being charged twice, I must intervene. But I cannot intervene until the State has advised me if there are some merits in the submission Mnisi tendered,” Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng said.
Baloyi responded that he had earlier, in an address to the court, indicated the State would contend the firearm found in Mncube’s possession was linked to the bullet found on the Meyiwa crime scene.
The trial continues today with the evidence of forensic investigator Sergeant Thabo Johannes Mosia.
The Star