Cape Town - Alleged underground crime kingpin Nafiz Modack and his co-accused were denied bail at the Blue Downs Regional Court on Wednesday.
Modack, Ashley Tabisher and Jacques Cronje brought a bail application after their co-accused, Amaal Jantjies, Jannick Adonis and Zane Kilian, were denied bail. Ricardo Morgan is out on R50000 bail.
The seven accused have 62 combined charges against them with offences relating to the attempted murder and subsequent murder of Anti-Gang Unit detective Charl Kinnear, the attempted murder of criminal lawyer William Booth, intimidation, kidnapping, extortion, money laundering and malicious injury/damage to property.
They have also been accused of participating in the conduct of a criminal enterprise and intercepting and attempting to intercept communications of Booth, Kinnear and 21 other individuals by way of pinging.
It was the State’s submission that Modack orchestrated a hand grenade attack on Kinnear in November 2019. On September 18, 2020 Kinnear was shot and killed while seated in his state vehicle, outside of his home in Bishop Lavis.
The State is also pinning the attempted assassination of Booth at his home in April 2020 on Modack.
The State said Kilian had given evidence stating that he was working under the instruction of Modack when intercepting Kinnear’s communications. In addition, Modack had allegedly conspired with co-accused Jantjies and Adonis in Kinnear’s murder.
The State argued that the murder of Kinnear was in retaliation for the arrest of Modack’s wife, Riana, and the investigations conducted against him by Kinnear. The attack on defence attorney Booth was apparently triggered by the fact that Booth had secured an interdict against Tabisher.
The State also argued that the true financial means of Modack remains a mystery because he provided little to no information about his financial status and is therefore a flight risk.
The State claims that “the ease with which an applicant can access vast sums of money goes directly to his likelihood to evade trial”, therefore “the deliberate vagueness by Modack on key financial aspects must raise a red flag for the court”.
Senior counsel representing Modack, Dirk Uys, argued that the evidence by the State came from an inadmissible source – an incriminating statement made by Kilian about being instructed by Modack to ping Kinnear.
Uys argued that the statements made by Kilian were not permissible as evidence and that the case against his client was very weak. It was Uys’s submission that the State’s evidence of Modack being a gangland figure was an improbable fabrication.
Representing Tabisher, Advocate Bruce Hendricks cited multiple reasons, including health, to justify his release from custody. Hendricks made the submission that his client was not a flight risk, that he would stand trial without hesitation and had no intention of interfering with trial proceedings by intimidating witnesses.
The State, however maintained that “murder, attempted murder, extortion, intimidation, kidnapping and corruption are unfortunately very prevalent crimes. What makes it more serious is that it was committed by a criminal enterprise of which Modack stands as the leader”.
The State was represented by advocates Blane Lazarus and Greg Wolmarans. The case has been postponed to February 28 for more accused to be added to the case and for trial dates to be decided.