Live feed application in Daveyton case denied

Reuters

SAPS officers appear at their bail hearing in the Benoni Magistrates Court. The nine policemen pleaded not guilty to murdering Mido Macia, who was handcuffed and dragged behind a police vehicle and later died in police cells. Photo: Werner Beukes / Reuters

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Johannesburg - The bail hearing of nine police officers accused of killing Daveyton taxi driver Mido Macia was delayed by a defence application on Tuesday.

Lawyers for the accused asked the court to put an end to the live feed of proceedings to another court room.

They argued that the overflow room, to accommodate media, family members and other interested parties, needed to be shut down because people following the proceedings got upset.

This apparently led to attempts to intimidate the defence lawyers outside the Benoni Magistrate's Court on Monday.

Prosecutor December Mthimunye argued the overflow room was in the interest of transparency. Mthimunye said the State was “not unsympathetic”, but that the “few rotten apples” who caused the disturbance had been identified.

Magistrate Sam Makamu ruled the live feed to the overflow room be allowed to continue.

“I find it difficult to believe there is a link between the overflow room and what happened yesterday [Monday],” Makamu said.

The bail application of the nine policemen resumed around 10.30am.

The accused are: Thamsanqa Ncema, 35, Linda Sololo, 56, Meshack Malele, 45, Motome Walter Ramatlou, 37, Percy Mnisi, 26, Bongumusa Mdluli, 25, Sipho Ngobeni, 30, Lungisa Ewababa, 31, and Bongani Kolisi, 27.

Macia was filmed being tied to the back of a police van and dragged along a street in Daveyton on February 26. An eyewitness gave the footage to the Daily Sun newspaper. Macia was found dead in the local police station's holding cells several hours later.

On Monday, the court heard Macia was in an accident several days before his death.

“A few days before his death he was involved in a car accident with schoolchildren,” defence lawyer Lokhimbar Dikatope said.

“Five of them [the children] died as a result. A case of culpable homicide was opened against him.”

On Monday it also emerged, in the State's affidavit by the investigating officer, that two of the policemen had cases pending. Ncema's matter was being dealt with internally. Sololo is facing a charge of defeating the ends of justice and is currently out on bail for that case.

On Monday, Mthimunye told the court that an autopsy found Macia had suffered extensive internal and external injuries, and had died from oxygen deprivation, a condition known as hypoxia. - Sapa