Pretoria - Controversial advocate Malesela Teffo's attempts to force the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria into a trial-within-a-trial has been turned down for the second time by presiding judge Tshifhiwa Maumela.
As mentioned in court on Friday, Teffo the defence counsel for accused one to four managed to pause the cross-examination of forensic officer sergeant Thabo Johannes Mosia by advocate Zandile Mshololo today as he formally submitted a special plea for a trial within a trial to be entertained.
The matter had to be paused briefly as the state, and both defence counsels went to thrash out issues in judge Maumela's chambers.
Upon return to open court, Teffo was allowed to proceed with his application despite assertions by the state and Mshololo for her to rather be allowed to complete her cross-examination of Mosia first before attending to any other matters.
State prosecutor George Baloyi commented that the correct order would be to allow the cross-examination of Mosia by Mshololo, which was midway, to take its course and thereafter deal with the issues raised in the special plea.
He also highlighted the concern for Mosia's health as the court had to adjourn early on Friday due to his ill health.
Despite this Teffo launched into the contents of his special plea where he once again raised issues surrounding the constitutionality of the alleged confessions made by the first and second accused, namely Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya and Bongani Ntanzi.
Once more he stressed that Sibiya and Ntanzi's alleged confessions were obtained after the men were severely assaulted by police officers from the various police stations they were moved around to.
"My clients were profusely assaulted until they bled and these confessions were obtained after the third assault."
"They (Sibiya and Ntanzi) were moved around as a piece-meal for the police who assaulted them with batons and even suffocated them with tubes in almost an apartheid-era tactic," he said.
According to Teffo, the men were forced to confess to the murder of Senzo Meyiwa even though they were in Mahlabatini and Nongoma in KwaZulu-Natal at the time of the murder.
He alleged in the case of Sibiya things were much worse as he was forced to point out places he did not know of and even implicate the other accused.
Teffo also questioned the issue of two case dockets by the police with different theories and suspects.
In giving his decision Maumela highlighted how Mshololo rose up several times in court and chambers pleading for protection to conduct her cross-examination of Mosia to its conclusion.
He said the court had also been pushed on Friday to entertain this matter, which starts to shake the authority of the courts in conducting proceedings and constantly be pushed to apologise to Mshololo for the interruptions.
Both advocates Baloyi and Mshololo were reportedly of the view that the issues sergeant Mosia was there to testify about did not hinge on the confessions being alluded to by Teffo at this stage.
"As I sit here I have no substantive application before me as I too also received submissions this morning and all I could do was to browse over the submissions and cannot say I have done justice going through them."
"After listening to all parties the court finds for Mshololo to continue with cross-examination but we are also open to the possibility and will be watching this space in terms of what the state does."
Maumela added that should the state seek to bring before court or desire to persuade the court to rely on any confessions his sense would be that the way would then be open for anyone affected by them to address those issues.
Mshololo resumed her cross-examination wherein she again questioned Mosia's qualifications.
Pretoria News