The defence team in the Piet Retief bail hearing expressed an alarmed objection to magistrate Simon Fankomo when they noticed that investigating officer Warrant Officer Vukile David Nhlapho’s testimony was seemingly being relayed to him in messages scribbled on a board by someone else in the courtroom, and held up for him to read.
Once it was drawn to the court’s attention, there followed a detailed legal debate until the court adjourned for lunch. When the hearing resumed, there was no further prompting.
Defence counsel J G Cilliers SC said he was ‘flabbergasted’ by what amounted to tampering with a witness.
Your correspondent had noticed this procedure taking place repeatedly for more than hour before it was spotted by the defence team.
The apparent prompting of Nhlapho – which a legal expert described to the Daily Friend as ‘extremely worrying’ – came during his examination by Advocate Robert Molokoane, acting for the state.
At issue was whether or not the five men facing charges of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and defeating the ends of justice arising from the murder of brothers Zenzele and Mgcini Coka on the farm Pampoenkraal on 9 April, should be granted bail.
The five accused – farmers Daniel Malan, Cornelius Greyling, Othard Klingenberg, Ignatius Steynberg, and farm manager Zenzele Yende – all completed the submission of their affidavits in support of being released on bail.
The bulk of yesterday’s hearing was devoted to Warrant Officer Nhlapho’s testimony.
He submitted that the accused did the commit the crimes detailed in the charge sheet, and argued that the element of common purpose was present in that they had conspired to act as they had.
Nhlapho urged the court to deny the five bail on the grounds that releasing them would undermine peace across the country, and in the Piet Retief district in particular. He said that the case had taken on a racial slant; police had received reports over the past week of white people being attacked, while the broader community believed that if the accused were released it would signify there was no justice in South Africa.
Advocate Cilliers SC drew the court’s attention to the fact that none of the witnesses on whose testimony the prosecution had built its case had had anything to say about how the farmers at the scene of the murders of the Coka brothers had been injured, including Hans Moolman, who remains in hospital recovering from an injury caused by a blow to the head.
Cilliers asked Nhlapho if he did not find it ‘strange’ that so many witnesses had claimed to have seen the events of 9 April, and that objective evidence showed several farmers had been severely injured, yet none of the witnesses had said anything about the injuries or how they were caused.
Nhlapho said it was not significant, and that more witnesses might come forward.
The matter was adjourned until Monday.