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Tempers flare at the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial

  • Advocate Malesela Teffo and his attorney Timothy Thobane discuss issues during the Senzo Meyiwa trial at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
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  • SABC-News-TeffoThobane-SiphoKekana
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Tempers flared at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday afternoon. This, when counsel for accused 1 to 4, Advocate Malesela Teffo seemed to lose his cool, verbally attacking the State Prosecutor George Baloyi and Advocate Zandile Mshololo for the fifth accused, saying they were “not learned.” 

Adv Teffo spent the entire morning making submissions to the court on a wide range of issues from the authenticity of the letter submitted in court on Monday said to have been authored by south Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Andrew Chauke to the manner in which his clients were “wrongfully” arrested for the Senzo Meyiwa murder case while they were in prison as well as, among others, accusing Adv Baloyi of not having the “title” to prosecute. This happened from the time court got in session after 10 am until it went on a brief recess at 11h15 before he carried on until lunch. 

All the while, both the state prosecutor and Advocate Mshololo sat back and listened. 

However, proceedings took a turn just before 1pm when Adv Baloyi objected and asked the court to put to an end Advocate’s long submission and asked that the points Teffo was raising should instead be done in a form of a formal application. 

“Yesterday, we were at a stage where we were discussing the date of postponement and we request that Adv Teffo’s continued submission be put to an end. We need to come to a point where we adjourned yesterday which is to arrange for a date for postponement,” says Advocate Baloyi. 

Advocate Mshololo seemed to touch a wrong nerve when she labeled Advocate Teffo’s long submission “wrong,” “unprocedural” and “inadmissible” in law.

Asked by the judge why she never objected during the more the two-hour-long submission, Advocate Mshololo said she was misled into thinking that Advocate Teffo had been given a new, proper instruction and that they were left “frustrated and traumatised for two hours.”

“Yesterday, I said, if there is any application that should come from my learned friend, I would ask that it comes after I’m done with cross-examination. That was my submission. We did not object because we did not see (what was happening was wrong), but we thought it would come to an end. The court went beyond its normal time yesterday, and it was really out of respect (that we didn’t object).” 

Advocate Teffo seemed not to take kindly to the objections saying it was clear that his clients were being sidelined from the proceedings, saying it would seem Advocate Mshololo’s word was “alfa and omega” in court.  

Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela advised Advocate Teffo to make a formal application for his issues.  

“I don’t have a problem with being taught law. I am always willing to learn. But I cannot be ‘learned’ (sic) by people who are not ‘learned.’ These two (counsels) on my sides are not learned.” 

Before matters adjourned on Monday, the court had been trying to find a suitable date for postponement. This, after Advocate Mshololo told the court she need time to go through the controversial docket Vosloorus 375/01/2019. 

She had last week demanded reasons why the state had decided to prosecute on docket 636/10/2014 over the one opened in 2019 with its own set of suspects including the people who were in the house when former Orlando Pirates goalkeeper, Senzo Meyiwa was shot eight years ago. 

However, the letter from the south Gauteng DPP, stated in court that the docket had no merit and was a mere internal opinion from a junior advocate – one of the issues Teffo sought to argue against. 

The trial is continuing. 

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