By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Pretoria Magistrate Court has granted suspended senior forensic South African Police Service (Saps) officer and ballistics expert Laurence Makgotloe bail.
He has been released on R15,000 bail under the conditions that he surrender his passport and refrain from contacting any of the witnesses.
Makgotloe is accused of being an accessory after the fact in the murder of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart.
The State alleged that after receiving ballistic evidence from the murder scene, the senior forensic officer compiled false ballistic findings and weakened the murder investigation.
Furthermore, when Makgotloe was arrested at his home, police found 43 rounds of live ammunition and 28 ballistic reports in his possession.
During closing arguments last week, Makgotloe’s legal team portrayed him as a “devoted family man” with a clean criminal record, while the state argued that he was a flight risk.
Delivering his bail judgment, Magistrate Johannes Kruger said there were no suggestions that Makgotloe’s release on bail would interfere with his upcoming trial.
“The concerns raised by the investigating officer were duly considered. However, the court is not persuaded that such concerns constitute compelling or real reasons to refuse bail.” Kruger said.
“The court is satisfied the applicant has discharged the onus resting upon him. Accordingly, the applicant is entitled to be released on bail pending the finalisation of this matter,” Kruger said.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana says while they note the successful bail application of Makgotloe, this has no bearing on the state’s case against him.
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry had previously heard testimony about the alleged tampering of forensic evidence linked to the murder of Swart.
Central to this testimony was evidence by witnesses A and B, detectives attached to the SAPS Gauteng Organised Crime Unit, who raised concerns about the ballistic investigation conducted at the SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory in Pretoria.
According to Witness A, police recovered 15 rifle cartridges in a plastic bag, along with a firearm found inside a Mercedes-Benz Viano belonging to Warrant Officer Michael Pule Tau, who is in custody for the Swart’s murder.
The testimony of witnesses A and B painted a troubling picture of alleged interference in investigations targeting organised crime networks.
Witnesses A and B testified that when they collected the ballistic report from Makgotloe in Pretoria, he told them the original report was incorrect and had to be rewritten, forcing them to wait more than an hour for a revised version.
The detectives further alleged that Makgotloe told them the firearms linked to the Swart investigation had surfaced in numerous violent crimes and that discussing the matter could be dangerous.
Their suspicions deepened when they discovered the report contained no findings on 15 cartridges recovered during Tau’s arrest. Seeking a second opinion, they took the exhibits to a KwaZulu-Natal forensic laboratory, where a ballistic expert reportedly noted that although the cartridges had been submitted for analysis, they were absent from the results section.