A magistrate has taken to the witness stand in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial. Vivian Cronje who is one of the presiding officers at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court is testifying on the confession statement by accused 2 Bongani Ntanzi which was taken in her office in Boksburg.
Baloyi: The state is going to lead evidence of a statement with a name that corresponds with that of the accused. As far as we are aware all these statements are going to be disputed.
Mngomezulu confirms they’ll dispute the admissibility of the statement. #SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwa
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) October 17, 2023
Since Friday, the High Court in Pretoria has been hearing arguments on the admissibility of confession statements by accused 1 Muzi Sibiya and Ntanzi, pointings out as well as warning statements by accused 3 Mthobisi Mncube, Mthokoziseni Maphisa and Fisokuhle Ntuli.
The court heard that Sibiya was sober, not assaulted, never promised anything and never expected any benefit when he confessed to the 2014 murder of the former Orlando Pirates goalkeeper.
Cronje is testifying on the circumstances around the taking down of the confession statements.
According to Section 217(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 which sets out the requirements for the admissibility of confessions where a confession is made to a peace officer who is not a magistrate or a justice of the peace, such a confession must be confirmed or reduced to writing in the presence of a magistrate. Such a confession, made to a magistrate or has been confirmed and reduced to writing in the presence of a magistrate, is deemed to be admissible in evidence upon mere production unless the contrary is proved, that the accused made the confession freely and voluntarily, while she or he was in her or his sound and sober senses, and without having been unduly influenced in making it.
The defence will be seeking to argue that the confessions the state seeks to have admitted as evidence were forced out of the accused or that the accused were under duress when they made them and should, as a result, not be admitted in court.
Last week Friday, without getting into the contents of the confession statement, the state dealt with the circumstances leading up to the confession and after the confession of accused 1.
Retired Colonel Mhlanganyela Moses Mbotho who will now be cross-examined by Adv Thulani Mngomezulu who has joined the accused’s defense team says Sibiya was relaxed and cooperative when he volunteered his confession a few hours following his arrest on May 30, 2020.
The defence has alleged the accused was tortured into a confession, but Mbotho has denied this.
Ramosepele : He says when you came into the room where he was being assaulted the assault stopped and you called him to the side and you had documents which you told him if he didn’t sign the assault was going to continue.
Mbotho: That is far from the truth. If he says the assault stopped when I came in, it would mean I found them in the room. But they found me in the room. And no assault took place.
The retired police officer says it is questionable that the accused would have been assaulted in Tembisa, Vosloorus and Soweto, as claimed by his defense counsel, before he gave a confession in Soweto, saying he would have been brought to Soweto in an ambulance if that was the case.
Mbotho says he was in the room with Sibiya for more than two hours and everything contained in the statement was from the statement. He says he can’t claim he forgot to mention during that time that he had been assaulted by the officers who had brought him to Soweto.
“Then he should have told me. I asked him and he said that. He can’t even say he forgot to tell me because I asked him.”
He shot down the assertion by the defense that he brought the confession statement already typed up and that all Sibiya did was sign it.
The trial continues.
