Pretoria - The decision about whether four murder suspects will spend Christmas with their families now lies in the hands of the courts. After a lengthy bail application, Daniel Nefolovhodwe, Tshepo Mosai, Roger Moseki and Isaac Vele will have to wait 15 days to hear if their bail application brought in the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court will be granted.
The men are facing a schedule six charge for the murder of Major-General Tirhani Maswanganyi, whose body was found in a stretch of veld along the R101, just a few kilometres from his house in Rooival, north of Pretoria.
On Thursday, the State and defence closed their arguments in the application that has been dragging on since their arrest in June.
State prosecutor Lucas Moseki has maintained that the State has a strong case, despite all four defence lawyers saying the State has a weak case and that its evidence was based on hearsay evidence.
The defence legal representatives put it on record that they had satisfied the courts on all grounds as to why their clients should be released on bail.
Stating their clients were not a flight risk, would not interfere with witnesses nor evade trail, and had no previous convictions, the defence asked their clients be granted bail.
Prosecutor Moseki, however, put it to the court that one of the accused had previously lied under oath about never crossing the country’s borders.
“Evidence has been presented in court that the said accused has crossed the border to Botswana several times,” Moseki said.
He also put it on record that another of the accused was a convicted criminal. “The fact that he used a different name, and the investigating team managed to determine that it was the same person through fingerprints, does that not make it a conviction still? It means he lied under oath,” Moseki said.
Another of the accused, Roger Moseki, had previously testified that he did not know Maswanganyi but the State challenged this.
He had testified that he assisted with analysing call records. He had gone on to say that the last call from Maswanganyi’s phone had been to a prostitute of whom he alleged the victim was a regular client, “so how would he know this?”
In closing arguments, he also said two of the accused knew witnesses who were set to testify in the trial, challenging the defence’s claims that they did not know and would not interfere with witnesses.
“I put it to the court that the court has a responsibility to protect a certain general whose life was threatened but who is still alive.”
Moseki also called for the court to take into consideration that another two of the accused were fed vital information on the investigation from intelligence officers, substantiating his claims that they could interfere with the probe.
“Even if the State has a weak case, it’s still up to the courts to decide if these men should be granted bail,” he said. Judgment will be on December 12.
Pretoria News