‘No one could account for shooting incident’

MATSAPHA - Lawyer Mangaliso Nkomondze highlighted how there can be no one to account for a shooting incident.

He told the witness, Assistant Superintendent Vusi Madonsela, that he did not have a history that the person who allegedly fired the shot had how many live rounds of ammunition. In response, the witness said such information could be obtained from another department.

Thereafter, the lawyer asked the assistant superintendent if he could agree with him that one could use a live round of ammunition in any compatible gun. For example, he said a 9.19 mm bullet could be used in any 9mm pistol and the witness agreed.

Again, the lawyer asked that if Constable Nhleko (Inquest Orderly), who was next to the witness, had his own 9.19mm bullets, he could use them in his (witness) 9mm pistol. The witness agreed.

Difference

Initially, the lawyer had asked the witness the difference between the two 9mm pistol; Browning and the Sig Sauer, if there was any. The witness alleged that the Browning loaded 13 live rounds of ammunition in the magazine, but a 14th one could be loaded into the chamber, even though it could cause problems, which was something he did not want to delve much into.

Thereafter, he said a Sig Sauer could load up to 13 cartridges, but the magazine was made for 12 bullets.

He said the 13th one could be loaded into the chamber. However, when the lawyer wanted to verify if the difference between the two guns was the capacity of the bullets; 14 for Browning and 13 for Sig Sauer, the witness submitted that he would prefer that there was no difference and asked to stick to that both guns could load up to 13 bullets.

He mentioned that he did not want to go to the problems that could happen if a 14th bullet could be loaded in the Browning.

Nkomondze then asked the witness how he could account for the eight bullets in the Browning and 10 in each Sig Sauer. In response, he submitted that he did not know why the bullets were eight and 10 respectively.