Pretoria - The defence team for Vusi “Khekhe” Mathibela, dubbed Mamelodi’s Number 1 Tsotsi by Police Minister Bheki Cele, is expected to pull out all the stops on April 11 to try to prove that he was not involved in the murder of billionaire businessman Wandile Bozwana.
This year will mark the seventh year since Bozwana and his business partner Mpho Baloyi were gunned down at the Garsfontein off-ramp on the N1 highway in October 2015.
Bozwana died soon after in hospital, but Baloyi survived the ordeal.
Mathibela and his co-accused, Matamela Robert Mutapa, Bonginkosi Khumalo and Sipho Hudla all along denied any knowledge of the killing. While no one had witnessed the incident, the prosecution mostly relied on circumstantial evidence.
This includes cellphone records and video footage taken that day at Sandton Square, where Bozwana and Baloyi were seen shopping. It is claimed some of the accused followed the pair.
It is expected that the various legal teams will present the evidence of their own experts in April to counter the State’s cellphone and video footage experts’ evidence.
The four had earlier asked the court for their discharge and argued that there was no evidence to pin the crimes of murder and attempted murder on them.
Judge Papi Mosopa, however, turned down their request, saying there was a case to answer.
In a further setback for Mathibela, the court also turned down his application to be released on bail.
Meanwhile, there is still a long legal road ahead in the rape and sexual offences trial of Rivers of Living Waters Church leader Bishop Bafana Stephen Zondo.
The matter had to be postponed after two weeks and the prosecution managed to call just two of its 26 witnesses. Proceedings will now resume on July 18.
Only one of the alleged victims – a woman who claimed she was raped on three occasions by Zondo 40 years ago – concluded her evidence.
Her brother was the second witness to take the stand and he, too, was grilled for two days by Zondo’s advocate Piet Pistorius.
Zondo earlier pleaded not guilty to 10 charges – eight of which are rape.
He did not provide an explanation of his plea, but it was clear from the defence’s line of questioning of witnesses that it believes the charges were trumped-up in a bid to extort money from the wealthy Zondo.
Former Crime Intelligence head Richard Mdluli and his co-accused will also be back in court, on January 18.
Mdluli, former supply chain manager Heine Barnard and the former chief financial officer of the State Security Agency, Solomon Lazarus, will then know whether the police will foot the bill for their defence.
They face charges of corruption, fraud and theft allegedly committed between 2008 and 2012 when they were at the helm of the police crime intelligence services.
Pretoria News