By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Closing arguments in the trial-within-a-trial in the Senzo Meyiwa murder case continued on Friday morning in the High Court in Pretoria.
The court is closer to establishing the admissibility of confession statements that were signed by two of the accused.
Defence lawyer Thulani Mngomezulu believes that the state has failed dismally to prove that confessions by accused numbers 1 and 2 were made freely and voluntarily.
Muziwakhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Ntanzi and three other accused are on trial for the murder in 2014 of former Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa.
Meyiwa was shot and killed at his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s parental home in Vosloorus, on Gauteng’s East Rand.
It was previously heard that docket 375 recommended that Khumalo and the six other people who were inside the house be charged with murder and defeating the ends of justice.
Mngomezulu elaborates, “But what is very important here is whether the state satisfied the court that he made the statement freely and voluntary in his sober state. Whether the accused is lying, is misrepresenting his facts, distorting information but ultimately the law requires the accused person to give evidence which is both reasonably and possibly true. Hence I’m saying in my submission the evidence given by Ntanzi to some extent I’ll discourage the fact that certain issues must be excluded as being reasonably true.”
The State and defence spent two months leading evidence in the trial within a trial, and now counsel will make oral submissions for and against the admissibility of the confession statements.
The crux of the arguments by Sibiya and Ntanzi, who are both accused of Senzo Meyiwa’s murder, is that they were severely beaten into signing confession statements that were already written.
However, the State believes police ticked all the required boxes when taking confessions, including ensuring that the accused were in their sound and sober senses, and that they made the statements freely and voluntarily.
Over the last two months in court, Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng advised the legal representatives to leave certain points for argument.