Pretoria - The removal of the body of soccer star Senzo Meyiwa from a Vosloorus house on October 26 2014, amounted to contamination of the crime scene.
This was according to advocate Malesela Teffo, who is representing four of the five accused in the Meyiwa murder trial in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
Teffo, who cross-examined forensic detective Sergeant Thabo Mosia, told the court yesterday that one of the witnesses lined up would testify that Meyiwa was already dead when he was rushed to Clinix Botshelong-Empilweni Private Hospital.
“The witness will further testify that the deceased was taken to hospital in his car, a BMW X6, driven by Nonhlahla Kelly Khumalo,” Teffo said.
Khumalo was Meyiwa’s girlfriend, and the house where the shooting took place belonged to her mother.
Teffo put it to Mosia that, “that scene was not complete without the body of the victim”. He said the body was removed by people who did not have medical training and that it was taken to the hospital only to be certified dead.
He insisted that the removal of the body amounted to “defeating the ends of justice and concealment of crime”.
State advocate George Baloyi objected to Teffo’s version, saying it insinuated that the body shouldn’t have been removed from the scene.
Mosia said the body was removed by people who rushed Meyiwa to hospital in an effort to save his life.
He said police officers at a hospital parking lot told him that Meyiwa was certified dead at the hospital.
Teffo, however, criticised him for not confirming the news broken by his colleagues by asking to see the body and also photographing it. In response, Mosia said: “We are not allowed to take photos of a person who died in hospital.”
Teffo also poked holes in an affidavit disposed by Mosia in June 2019, in which he said that upon his arrival at Kutlwanong Street in Vosloorus, he never suspected any tampering with the crime scene.
The affidavit was written by Mosia after he was requested to do so by Colonel Joyce Buthelezi.
“The reason for Colonel Buthelezi asking me to write the statement was to explain how the crime scene was handled because I was the first forensic officer to go to the scene,” Mosia said.
He later told the court that the crime was reported almost four hours after it happened, and that the lapse of time might have compromised the crime scene, which was left unattended.
Teffo accused Mosia of being evasive and an untrustworthy witness who was trying to cover up blunders by his fellow officers.
During the cross-examination, Teffo referred Mosia to a case numbered 375 opened in 2019 and implicating people who were inside the house on the night of the commission of the crime.
The case was headed by Buthelezi and it implicated music producer Sello Chico Twala’s son, Longwe, Kelly Khumalo, Zandile Khumalo, Meyiwa’s friends Tumelo Madlala and Mthokosisi Thwala, who were inside the house with with two children.
It was also pointed out that the occupants of the house hatched a plan to tell police that they were victims of a robbery that went wrong.
Mosia declined to comment on charges against the house’s occupants, however, Teffo said that he agreed with the theory presented in the 2019 case.
Pretoria News