Clips show accused shadowing Bozwana

Tycoon murder was planned, prosecutors

The prosecution in the murder case of North West tycoon Wandile Bozwana will argue that police were able to identify the accused from at least seven CCTV footages obtained from various locations.

The footages show Bozwana’s last movements with his girlfriend Mpho Baloyi before they were ambushed on N1’s Garsfontein off-ramp in Pretoria on October 2015.

Taxi bosses Sipho Patrick Hudla, 34, Matamela Robert Mutapa, 40, and Bonginkosi Paul Khumalo, 36, are all in custody and have pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder of Baloyi.

The fourth accused, Pretoria businessman Reginald Mathibela, who is out on R50000 bail, has also pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutor Jennifer Cronje told the court yesterday that they would argue that the footages also prove that Bozwana’s murder was premeditated and that the four accused in the matter acted in common purpose to commit the crime.

“The state will argue that from the footages, the police were able to identify the accused … the footage is admissible if the suspects are visible where [Bozwana and Baloyi] were. The state will argue at the end that the footages prove premeditation and common purpose,” she said.

Cronje submitted that the footage was used to get the investigation off the ground.

Constable Evans Mongwe, who is a state witness and part of the Gauteng investigating unit handling the case, testified that he visited Baloyi at Unitas Hospital in Centurion where she was treated following the shooting.

He said Baloyi had detailed their movements the previous day and that this was how they established that there could be footage from which they could identify the suspects.

Mongwe said they went on to obtain the footage from which they identified possible suspects. The footage include the one obtained from a McDonald’s outlet in Sandton where the couple had lunch.

More footage from the same day shows the couple at a salon for beauty treatments as well as walkways at the Nelson Mandela Square (in Sandton) and the Garsfontein off-ramp where the couple was ambushed.

“We have identified the suspects in the footage because of the movements they were making around the victims. We could also see the suspects following them [Bozwana and Baloyi],” he said.

Bozwana, 43, who later died at Netcare Unitas Hospital, was hit by at least nine bullets. Baloyi was hit twice.

The trial continues.