Cape Town - A ballistics expert became the latest casualty in the trial of honeymoon murder accused Shrien Dewani as the British businessman's legal team tore his evidence to shreds.
Pieter Engelbrecht testified that his role in the investigation was to establish from which direction the bullet, that killed Dewani's newlywed wife Anni Hindocha in November 2010, came.
Dewani is accused of paying hitmen to kill Anni and make it look like a hijacking.
But he maintains his innocence, saying that he too was a victim of the hijacking but that the assailants let him go.
According to Engelbrecht, the fatal shot was fired from the front left of the vehicle towards the right rear.
It is the State's case that gunman Xolile Mngeni, who has since died, fired the fatal shot while his accomplice, Mziwamadoda Qwabe, drove the vehicle.
The conclusions Engelbrecht reached, based on measurements he had taken of the VW Sharan in which Anni was killed, support this.
The defence, however, disputes the evidence and, ahead of the trial, went about its own investigations, which included measuring the VW Sharan in which Anni had been killed as well as Mngeni's arms.
Its theory is that the trajectory of the bullet, the fact that Anni sustained a contact wound, primer residue found on the yellow kitchen gloves Qwabe had worn in the attack, evidence of a kitchen glove print on the left rear door, and evidence of marks on Anni's right leg, showed that Qwabe shot Anni with his left hand while leaning into the vehicle through the left rear door, and grabbing her left leg with his right hand.
The defence placed this on record when Qwabe gave evidence over three days from October 8.
On Wednesday it emerged that on October 17 - after Qwabe testified - Engelbrecht went to Goodwood Prison to take his own measurements of Mngeni's arms.
In addition, Engelbrecht only took his measurements of the VW Sharan two weeks ago.
At the time, the original seats had been replaced and had arm rests which were not there before.
Engelbrecht said that he also measured the sponge of the original car seat to measure where the bullet entered and compared his measurements.
However, it was put to him that the original leather cover put pressure on the sponge and that, without it, the measurements would be different.
Defence advocate Pieter Botha put it to Engelbrecht that he was adapting his evidence to suit the State's case, saying it differed from what he had testified in Mngeni's trial.
He also pointed out that Engelbrecht, who was supposed to be an objective expert, was not even prepared to make concessions on issues that were common cause between the parties.
“This is a very clear indication that you are miles away from being an objective expert witness,” he said.
Proceedings were interrupted to accommodate the families' Diwali celebrations.
The trial continues on Monday.
IOL