Pretoria - A judge yesterday put his foot down and refused to allow the trial of the four accused facing charges of murder and attempted murder of billionaire Wandile Bozwana delayed any further.
Two of the accused, including the man dubbed Mamelodi’s No 1 Tsotsi, Vusi “Khekhe” Mathibela, said they were ready to proceed with the trial yesterday, but two other accused could not make up their minds whether they were going to testify in their defence or not.
One of the two who wanted the trial to stand down until tomorrow, Sipho Hudla, through his lawyer, told the court he obtained the services of a facial recognition expert and her report would only be ready tomorrow.
The State earlier presented video footage to the court, taken at Sandton City on the day of Bozwana’s death. The footage was not very clear, but an expert called by the prosecution testified that one of the men on the video who was following Bozwana’s movements that day was Hudla.
Hudla, Mathibela and their co-accused, Matamela Robert Mutapa and Bonginkosi Paul Khumalo earlier pleaded not guilty to murdering Bozwana, and to the attempted murder of his business partner Mpho Baloi.
Judge Papi Masopa yesterday said enough was enough regarding all the trial postponements. Bozwana was killed in 2015 but the trial in the high court only kicked off in 2017. Judge Masopa noted that in May last year, he had turned down an application by all four accused to have the charges against them discharged.
This was after the prosecution had closed its case and before the defence was to present their case. Both the prosecution and the judge yesterday said the defence had been dragging its feet for nearly a year in this trial.
Some delays were not their fault, as one of the defence advocates died last year. But the judge said Hudla – accused number one in the trial – through his advocate had said he will not testify in his defence. It is not known whether Mathibela and Khumalo will testify, but the court heard Hudla and Mutapa were still deciding what to do. Judge Mosopa said they must decide as he not would tolerate any more delays. The judge ordered that the trial go ahead today.
Bozwana was killed in October 2015 after he was hit by several bullets and Baloyi was injured when two gunmen opened fire on them at a traffic light at the Garsfontein offramp, off the N1 highway. The seriously injured Baloyi managed to drive on to get help. Bozwana died shortly afterwards in hospital. It is claimed that Mathibela’s co-accused acted on his instructions to kill Bozwana. Mathibela denied this.
The prosecution’s case is that the accused followed Bozwana that fateful day at Sandton City. The accused maintain that they knew nothing about the incident, nor did they follow Bozwana and Baloyi to Pretoria.
Pretoria News