Senzo trial: ‘my client was in KZN’

It cannot be proven that accused one in the Senzo Meyiwa trial was in Gauteng the day the Bafana Bafana goalkeeper was killed, his lawyer Advocate Thulani Mngomezulu argued in the High Court in Pretoria yesterday.

Meyiwa was shot and killed while visiting his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo at her mother’s house in Vosloorus on 26 October, 2014.

Mngomezulu cross-examined Electronic National Administration Traffic Information System (eNatis) expert Christopher Matlou, who on Friday refuted claims by his client, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, that he was not in Gauteng between 2013 and 2015.

Matlou testified that although Sibiya lived in Mahlabathini, KwaZulu-Natal, in 2014, he made a learner’s licence booking in Brakpan and was given a 22 July date for his test.

Matlou said the eNatis system showed Sibiya applied for a learner’s licence twice in 2014 – in Brakpan in July, and in Boksburg in September. “What I can tell you is that after he realised that he failed [the first test in Brakpan] and didn’t want to give up, he went to the nearest appropriate driving licence testing centre [in Boksburg] to make other further bookings on the same day,” he said.

“There is no restriction as to when you can book another slot. If it’s available, you get allocated.”

Mngomezulu, however, maintained that while the eNatis system could tell the court when Sibiya booked, wrote, failed or passed the learner’s licence, it could not tell the court if the accused remained in Gauteng after booking or writing a test.

“But can you say he remained in Gauteng until he passed the learner’s licence? You cannot dispute the fact that, at the time of the death of Senzo Meyiwa, he says he was in KwaZulu-Natal,” argued Mngomezulu.

The trial continues.