Cape Town - The signature on the will of deceased acting Judge Patrick Maqubela was his and not a forgery, an expert testified in the trial of Maqubela’s widow in the Western Cape High Court.
On Wednesday, handwriting expert Cecil Greenfield read out a report on his findings of a signature the State alleges was forged.
The acting judge was found dead in his Bantry Bay flat on June 7, 2009. He had been dead for two days before he was found.
His wife, Thandi Maqubela and co-accused, Vela Mabena, are on trial and have both pleaded not guilty to murder.
Maqubela has also pleaded not guilty to additional charges of fraud and forgery, relating to allegations that she altered her husband’s will.
The State claims Thandi Maqubela forged her husband’s signature on his will, presenting the forged will at the Johannesburg office of the Master of the High Court.
In previous testimonies the State’s handwriting expert, Colonel Marco van der Hammen, had selected four signatures that he found had differences and deduced that the signature was a forgery.
Van der Hammen had previously testified that there were “significant differences” between specimens of the acting judge’s signature and the one on the will.
On Wednesday, Greenfield, an expert called by Maqubela’s lawyer Marius Broeksma, said he had scrutinised specimen signatures from the late judge to use as a comparison against the signature on the will.
He compared consistencies in the specimen signatures and other characteristics including the slope and pen lifts, among other factors.
In conclusion, he told the court that “in all probability” it was his opinion that the signature was that of the late acting judge.
In papers before court, he concluded: “It is therefore my opinion based on the results of tests made with the available material that the disputed signature as described is in all probability authentic.”
Regarding Van der Hammen’s findings, Greenfield said: “They are not really differences but variations of the signature. The four points the colonel makes are merely variations. They’re not different at all.”
Greenfield said signatures could be forged in three ways: tracing, freehand or the cut and paste method.