Senzo Meyiwa murder trial: Accused arrested unlawfully, says the defence

Police officer Batho Mogola on Tuesday denied that two of the men accused in the murder of Senzo Meyiwa were unlawfully arrested and assaulted to make confessions.

During cross-examination in the Pretoria high court, defence advocate Thulani Mngomezulu put it to Mogola that accused number one, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, was unlawfully arrested on 30 May 2020 because the application for his arrest was not lawfully obtained. 

To which Mogola responded: “I don’t know what the counsel is talking about.”

On Monday Mogola told the court that Sibiya was allegedly on the verge of confessing to Meyiwa’s murder a few hours after his arrest. She said she had stopped him before he made the confession and read him his rights. 

On Tuesday she denied that Sibiya was tortured or assaulted into confessing, telling the court: “It is a lie that he was taken to that place [Lethabong] and assaulted.”

The defence contended that accused number two, Bongani Ntanzi, was arrested on 16 June 2020 yet the police had not provided a docket for his arrest.

“It has been admitted that accused number two was arrested under the wrong case number and the wrong information [which] constituted an unlawful arrest,” Mngomezulu said.

He added that the two accused were arrested on different charges that did not include the 26 October 2014 murder of Meyiwa but they were questioned about the Bafana Bafana captain’s killing.

Mogola was due back in court on Wednesday to give accounts of an alleged phone call made from Sibiya’s phone to traditional healer Lion Robert Zwane before his arrest.

Sibiya and Ntanzi are among the five men accused of killing Meyiwa at the home of his girlfriend, singer Kelly Khumalo, in Vosloorus, Gauteng. They have pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and the illegal possession of ammunition.

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