The controversial Vosloorus CAS 375/1/2019 docket, which was opened five years after the murder of former Orlando Pirates goalkeeper, Senzo Meyiwa, may contain statements that were obtained through torture of those who gave them.
State witness, Mthokozisi Thwala, has told the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that in January 2019, the month the docket was opened, he was suddenly picked up by two police officers at his Umlazi home in Durban under the pretext that he was going to attend an identification parade. He says it would later turn out the real reason he was picked up was to torture him to admit having been the one who had killed Meyiwa on the night of 26 October 2014.
“From 2014 until 13 January 2019, police would call me at least two days before but this time around they didn’t. I told them this was the first time that they had just arrived. They told me that these people had just been arrested and needed to be identified,” says Thwala.
He says he was under the impression that the parade would be in Pietermaritzburg but he was told it would held in Johannesburg.
“I asked if we could not leave the following day. They said I had made an oath that I would always be available. I asked them to wait for my mother who then arrived and they explained to her,” says Thwala.
He says he was driven all the way to Gauteng where he was taken to the office of the Investigating Officer of the second docket, Lieutenant-Colonel Joyce Buthelezi in Pretoria where he was tortured throughout the night.
Proceedings had to be paused for a moment when teary-eyed Thwala started sobbing and had been given sometime to gather himself again when he started recalling the torture.
He says while he was waiting in what looked like Buthelezi’s office, two arrived and took away his phone, “and then they asked me, why did you kill Senzo?’”
Thwala: Then they asked me, “why did you kill Senzo?”
While I was still confused he just started assaulting me … for a good hour.
Judge: Did both assault you or one?
Thwala: Both of them assaulted me.#SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwa
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) May 3, 2023
Thwala says he had his hands tied behind his back, and then tied up with his legs before he was put on a piece of mat and suffocated.
Baloyi: Do you know why they were assaulting you?
Thwala: I also wish I knew. They just kept assaulting me and they told me I would eventually concede to what they were accusing me of. I was screaming as they were assaulting me. Later on, one of them came into the room with a bag.
They opened the bag and then they took out a rope … those big ropes that you use to slaughter a cow. They then took out something that looked like a mat and my hands were tied at the back and they also tied my legs and then they then tied my legs with my tied hands and put me on this mat. My private parts were on this mat, which means they knew…(breaks down)
Thwala says when Buthelezi came back to the office in the morning, she accused him of refusing to cooperate because he had refused to admit being the man that pulled the trigger.
“They then removed this mat under me, which I had peed on, which means they knew that they needed to put that mat because I would pee on myself during the torture. Then Buthelezi came back into the office and said to me it meant that I was not willing to cooperate because I had not conceded to what I was being accused of,” says Thwala.
Thwala: I don’t know what they had planned but you could see one was tired of this while the other one was willing to continue to carry on. All this while I was screaming and apologizing and so on. #SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwatrial #SenzoMeyiwa
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) May 3, 2023
Thwala says even after the torture he was asked to make a statement saying that he was not in the house the night Meyiwa was shot. In his evidence in court, he was in the house when the shot was fired and it was after that, that he ran out of the house, jumped over the gates of the house next door, before he jumped the wall back into Kelly’s home to find Meyiwa lying with a bullet would to the chest.
He says he was asked to send through this statement via WhatsApp which he did, but wrote it his way and not as instructed by Lt-Colonel Buthelezi.
Thwala: She then told I should sent her this statement via WhatsApp because she had to take it to a court somewhere in Joburg.
I did sent her this statement but wrote it my way and not how she had instructed me to. #SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwatrial #SenzoMeyiwa
— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) May 3, 2023
The integrity of the first docket Vosloorus CAS 636/10/2014 – which was opened immediately opened after the incident in 2014 with Brigadier Gininga as the Investigating Officer – was also cast in doubt. This when Thwala revealed an identity parade which took place in January 2014 at the Pietermaritzburg Correctional Services.
He says after he was picked up by Gininga, then driven to the centre where the parade would take place. He says during the parade, he didn’t identify anyone as being one of the people who had entered the house in 2014 but pointed out one who had similar features to one of alleged intruders.
He says from that moment, things seemed rushed as he was then asked to step forward, a picture was taken and the matter was over.
He says it was at this point that he told Gininda that he was not saying the person who had similar features was in fact the person that had entered the house in Vosloorus in 2014.
“I then stopped the person who was conducting this investigation. I think his name was Brigadier Gininda. I told him I did not say this was the person because I see how things are done here. He then said he understood that I only said similar features. I then told him I didn’t say this was the person and I don’t want stories after that,” says Thwala.
“I told him even in the car that I didn’t understand how things were done in there. He said he understood. But I never heard them talk about that matter again.”
The matter was postponed to Thursday when the state is expected to conclude leading the evidence in chief to then allow the four counsels representing the five accused to kick off the cross-examination of the witness.
