The defence team in the bail application of five accused in the murder of two businesswomen in Limpopo are expected to wrap its head of arguments in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
Mokoena Mabusela Leshabane 46, and her friend Tebogo Mphuti 35, were shot and killed execution-style while they were seated in their luxury car at an industrial site of Polokwane.
Mokoena’s husband, Stanley Leshabane, is among the five men arrested in Katlegong and Germiston for the double murder and is applying for bail.
Leshabane is a tenderpreneur while the four people he allegedly hired to kill his wife work in the taxi industry in Germiston and Katlehong as drivers and a queue marshal.
Defence lawyer dismisses cellphone records
The lawyer of four suspects accused of killing the two businesswomen dismissed cellphone records that put the suspects near the scene of the crime as circumstantial evidence.
Defence lawyer Paul Moruleng was speaking during the bail application of the five suspects at the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court earlier in December.
A group of women representing the ANC Women’s League and people against Gender-Based Violence picketed outside the court. They prayed and called for the court not to grant bail to the suspects.
Moruleng, who is representing accused number one to four in the murder case, says the fact that cellphone records show the suspects were 18 meters from where the women were shot does not mean they committed the crime.
He says the car tracker records that police are mostly relying on to prove the car was driven from Gauteng to Limpopo, also do not mean the suspects were the occupants of the getaway car, used in the hit. The state alleges that records show that the car used in the murder followed the women four kilometres from where they lodged in Polokwane, to where they were killed on October 10th.
The investigating officer, Warrant officer Gerald Kotze, told the court they checked car tracking records at four toll gates namely The Zebediela, Kranskop, Phumulani and Carousel toll gates. The records showed that the red sedan used by the suspects went through the border gates on their way to Polokwane and on their way back to Germiston. However, Moruleng says the camera records at toll gates do not clearly show who the occupants of the car were.
Judgment will be delivered on December 28, 2020.
