WeeklySA_AdminWHO DUNNIT? Startling evidence at the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial keeps nation glued on their TV sets as they follow court proceedings
By Ali Mphaki
Presiding is Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela.
Resplendent in his tomato red robes and perched on his leather-upholstered seat, he is decorum personified. But make no mistake, he will never allow the “tail to wag the dog” in his courtroom.
Prima facie, watching Maumela scribble his notes and making those calculated remarks, he comes out like the wise Biblical Solomon.
Spotting his pitch-black Afro-hairdo and with a goatie sprinkled with grey/white hair, were he to find himself in an (un)compromised scene, chances are the learned judge would easily be perjured for a bishop of a popular KZN-based church outfit, the strong Shembe.
Conclusively, the judge leaves a lingering impression of a Samson, of one decreed never to have his hair shorn, or one whose strength comes from their hair.
Reports say the hairdo is an act of protest, after an incident during the 1976 Soweto Uprisings when the apartheid police tortured a young activist Maumela pulling his long hair etc.
Following his torture, he took a vow never to be Delilah’d.
It has been two weeks since Maumela had been presiding over the proceedings in the murder trial of Orlando Pirates goalkeeper and Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa.
The evidence has been quite hair-raising. Nothing it seems, could had prepared Maumela, a judge since 2012, for what superficially looks like a straightforward, but very complex case of the death of Meyiwa.
Apart from ensuring the smooth running of court proceedings, Maumela finds himself forced to give pro deo English lessons, as exemplified in one of his several exchanges with defence lawyer Advocate Teffo.
Judge: I don’t think you understand what the word preliminary means. It is something that happens before another. This case has already started.
Adv.Teffo: I don’t mean preliminary as in preliminary.
Judge: Im saying you may not understand the meaning of the word. But if you insist on using that word carry on.
Adv. Teffo: Yah its just a English. My Lord.
In a country with 12 official languages, the irony of proceedings carried out in English when the judge, defence /State lawyers and the accused are all black, is glaring.
Inevitably something had to give, and enter the Sesotho interpreter, this when first witness Sergeant Thabo Mosia somersaulted from his earlier decision of giving his evidence in English, having done so for eight days.
Mosia, a B.Tech in Forensics Unisa graduate, had reached his English tipping point and the only way was back to his mother tongue.
The use of the Sesotho interpreter, while giving Mosia some time to think his answers carefully, has unwittingly added some colour to the male dominated proceedings.
Notwithstanding her bantuism, the title criminalistics-forensic-expert was a bit of a tongue twister for the sweet-voiced lass.
As an emphatic confirmation that law is not a strictly male domain, defence lawyer Advocate Sibongile Mshololo, representing accused number five Fisokuhle Ntuli, is no shrinking violet.
Her probing questions, like the fresh braids of her hair, has the knack to entangle a witness into a knot.
Coming eight years after the fact, the murder case of Meyiwa sees five men appearing at the North Gauteng High court, charged with his murder.
They are Muzikawukhulelwa S’Tembu Sibiya, Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi, Mthobisi Prince Mncube, Mthokoziseni Ziphozonke Maphisa, and Fisokuhle Ntuli. They have all pleaded not guilty.
Proceedings got to a sticky start with the introduction of a “surprise” second docket on Wednesday, an act which enraged Mshololo who expressed her shock at the manner in which the State was conducting the case and how her client was subsequently prejudiced.
Unlike the first docket, the second document mentions seven other people who were in the house when the alleged murder happened, with the suspects identified including singer Kelly Khumalo, her mother Gladness, her sister Zandi, Meyiwa’s two friends, Tumelo Madlala and Mthokozisi Thwala, Zandi’s boyfriend Longwe Thwala and Maggie Phiri.
Mshololo, who was busy with her cross-examination of Mosia, asked for some few days to study the second docket. There was no option but to postpone the case until Monday, another delay as far as the Meyiwa family and the accused are concerned, but a well-deserved short break for judge Maumela to enjoy his favourite drink – H2O, pure water – far from the glare of TV cameras.
Published on the 53th Edition. Get E-Copy
