By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
A traditional healer called to be a State witness in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial told the Pretoria High Court that police pretended they needed a consultation when they came to see him.
The healer from Palm Ridge gave testimony in the trial against five men accused of the football star’s murder.
Meyiwa was shot while at the home of his girlfriend, Kelly Khumalo, in October 2014.
Forensics officer Thabo Mosia returned to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday for further cross-examination.
The defence had requested for Mosia to come back to the witness stand to provide clarity on some issues he testified about.
Mosia had detailed how he collected and processed all the evidence from the Vosloorus family home of Meyiwa’s then-girlfriend, Kelly Khumalo, where the former Bafana Bafana captain was shot on 26 October 2014.
He said he was fit to testify after having complained that the witness stand had affected his health in his previous court appearance.
Continuing with his cross-examination, Advocate Zithulele Nxumalo, representing Mthokoziseni Maphisa, quizzed Mosia about the dissimilarity between his evidence in court and his pocketbook which was recently provided to the defence.
But Mosia defended his testimony, saying he was forced to prepare without the pocketbook.
“I was on standby and when I prepared this evidence pertaining to this matter I was on incapacity leave. I had to go to Springs to search for documents that would assist me to prepare my evidence for this court.
“But when I got to Springs I found that the documents had already been booked out by the provincial crime scene management. I could not even find my pocketbook… and that actually affected the manner in which I was trying to prepare to come to court,” he said.
The witness stressed that he relied on statements that he had made prior to testifying.
“With the statement I had found, I did not have the certainty that it was going to be the statement that was going to form part of the second docket that I found here in court. And that is one of the reasons why there was a confusion of my evidence towards the end,” Mosia explained.
Mosia had previously told the court that the pocketbook could not be found at the criminal records centre in Springs in 2022.
He also disputed the suggestion that he did not go to other crime scenes after leaving the Khumalo household at the time Meyiwa was killed.
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