Port Elizabeth – Police methods and accusations of “beating” witnesses into confessions came under the microscope in the ongoing murder trial involving Christopher Panayiotou and two co-accused.
Lieutenant Colonel Willie Mayi was the arresting officer of Section 204 witness Luthando Siyoni during April 2015, and Mayi testified for the first day on Monday at the Port Elizabeth High Court.
Under cross examination, defence Advocate Terry Price SC, accused Mayi of having a reputation of “lying” when testifying in other cases and that three high court judges had previously made a finding that Mayi “misled” the courts.
“I put it to you that it’s because you’re the enforcer. You run around beating people up,” said Price.
Mayi was also responsible for commissioning Siyoni’s statement and that of his girlfriend Babalwa Breakfast.
Last week the court declared Siyoni hostile after he refused to answer any of the prosecution’s questions. Prior to that, Breakfast was also declared hostile and was subsequently arrested on charges of perjury.
After receiving information from an informer, Mayi said he tracked down the couple to take them in for questioning.
Mayi took the court back to the day he collected Breakfast at her home and Siyoni from Panayiotou’s Infinity nightclub and took the pair in for questioning at Kwanobuhle SAPS. According to him, they were placed in separate rooms.
“You can’t dispute her [Breakfast] evidence that she feared you and that’s why she wanted her brother to come with?” asked Price.
Mayi disputed these claims and said that Breakfast had come with him voluntarily, that she had never raised any concerns about her statement but had rather started to sing like a canary under questioning.
Mayi said that he arrested Siyoni after his role in the alleged hit emerged during Breakfast’s questioning. He denied assaulting the bouncer.
Siyoni has claimed police beat him into saying what they “wanted him to say” at Kwanobuhle, stood on him, tore his pants, tortured him with a tube to the extent that he began to bleed while Mayi wiped the blood off his face.
“I never wiped any blood, there was no blood,” said Mayi.
Price also questioned how it was possible that Mayi’s own statement was commissioned prior to Breakfast’s statement being commissioned.
Mayi dismissed it as an administrative error.
Mayi earlier testified that after Siyoni’s questioning at Kwanobuhle he had no business in Siyoni’s trip to Fort Beaufort where the bouncer made a confession. However, Price read the officer’s statement which stated: “I arranged for suspect to be taken to Ndenzeni in Fort Beaufort.”
“I didn’t make an arrangement, a mistake was made, I don’t deny my mistake, it should be rephrased,” said Mayi.
Price then shouted: “So it’s wrong how must we now trust the rest of your statement?”
The State alleges that Sinethemba Nemembe assisted Sizwe Vumazonke to kidnap and murder Jayde at the behest of her husband Christopher.
Vumazonke, who was the alleged link between Siyoni and other hitmen, has since died.
Jayde was driven to a remote area on the outskirts of Kwanobuhle, where the alleged murder took place. The State contends Vumazonke fired two shots through Jayde’s back and a final shot through her head.
Zolani Sibeko was the last suspect to be arrested, 15 months after the murder. He was apparently placed – through cellphone mapping – outside Jayde’s complex in the days before her murder.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
* Meanwhile, earlier on Monday, Sinethemba Nemembe appeared in a separate court room on charges of murder and robbery.
According to the indictment, during August 2015, Nemembe and three others attacked 78-year old Denise Webber at her home in Kabega Park.
“[They] tied her on both her legs and arms and strangled her to death,” the indictment reads.
According to the State, the men fled the scene with a number of expensive personal and household items.
The case was postponed until April 18 next year.
African News Agency