By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Pretoria high court on Friday has granted the defence application to call two more ballistics experts in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial.
The two experts were among a group of three analysts that confirmed Colonel Chris Mangena’s findings linking a firearm seized from accused 3 Mthobisi Mncube to Meyiwa’s murder.
Mangena testified that the copper metal jacket (CMJ) bullet projectile recovered from the scene of Meyiwa’s murder matched a 9mm firearm linked to one of the accused Mncube.
A Chief forensic investigator Lieutenant Olebile Sereo peer reviewed Mangena’s ballistics tests and corroborated the results.
Warrant Officer Cornelius Roelofse examined Mncube’s firearm, which had been confiscated during his arrest for an unrelated murder case.
Roelofse was the ballistics expert who tested the bullets and cartridges found at the crime scene and matched them to the pistol.
These tests were performed in 2015.
Almost five years later, after Mncube became a suspect in the Meyiwa case, Mangena was tasked with testing whether the same firearm was used in his murder.
However, in the time that lapsed, questions arose whether it was the same gun.
Sereo has explained how he vetted Mangena’s result.
“The two lines representing the ridges running from the left to the right which are parallel to each other- the pace between these two lines is the same as on this test bullet.
The valley on top of these raised lines corresponds with the valley on the right hand side which is the test.”
Meyiwa was shot and killed while visiting Kelly Khumalo at her mother’s residence in Vosloorus, Gauteng, on 26 October 2014.
Khumalo ordered the hit on her former Orlando Pirates goalkeeper, according to Muzi Sibiya and Bongani Ntanzi’s confession statements.
Sibiya, Ntanzi, Mthobisi Mncube, Mthokoziseni Maphisa and Fisokuhle Ntuli are on trial for Meyiwa’s murder.
They face charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of an unlicensed firearm, and possession of ammunition.