Ballistics exercise not clear who ired shots, when ‐ lawyer

MATSAPHA – “This ballistics exercise is a non-starter as it does not assist the inquest as to who fired shots and when.”

This statement was made by Lawyer Mangaliso Nkomondze when he cross-examined Assistant Superintendent Vusi Madonsela.

Initially, the lawyer told the witness that the incident involving the late Thabani Nkomonye took place on May 8, 2021, and he only examined the guns on June 17, 2021, which was 40 days later. The witness agreed.

Thereafter, the lawyer, who said he would concentrate on the report of the 9mm Parabellum Browning pistol, asked Madonsela if he would agree with him that as a ballistics expert, he could not tell them if the gun fired a shot on May 8, 2021. The witness responded to the positive. “You can also agree with me that before the gun landed in your hands, it had fired a shot,” the lawyer asked and again, the witness’s response was to the affirmative.

After that, the lawyer said some ballistics experts could say there were few other scientific means that could be used to determine if a gun had fired a shot at a particular object at a certain time. The witness disagreed with the lawyer. He said that could be possible if the expert could get the propellants from the object that was shot and match them with those in the gun.

Propellants

However, the assistant superintendent submitted that in this case, there were no other tests done. He added that if they got the object that was shot or the bullet, it was going to be matched against the propellants in the gun.

Thereafter, the lawyer asked the witness that if he had known the police officers alleged to have fired shots using the gun, he was going to advise that he needed to check their shirts and hands to do a microscopic examination to see if there were no propellants that matched with those in the gun.

In response, the witness agreed with the lawyer. In fact, he alleged that he usually advised so, but stated that in this case, he was not given the bullet shell or the object that was shot. They lawyer then told him that considering the days that had lapsed (40 days), it was too long to carry out a microscopic examination to determine if there were propellants on the police shirts or hands and he agreed.

The lawyer then told him that the only way to see if the shot fired caused the hole in the car that was driven by the deceased was to go to the scene to get the bullet shell or visit the vehicle to check the propellants and match it against those in the gun.

However, the witness did not agree with the lawyer. He submitted that there was another ballistic expert who examined the car, but the problem was that he did not know his findings.

The lawyer told him that to show the fallacy of his response, he did not know the findings of Detective Inspector Vincent Mbingo (officer who examined the car) and if he knew it, he would have given him the propellants of the gun to see if it matched with those from the hole.

“I do not know his (Mbingo’s) findings and I do not know if propellants were taken from the body,” the witness responded.

Hole

Thereafter, the lawyer asked that they should focus on the hole in the car.

He put it to him that he did not carry out an examination on the hole in the car to determine if there were any propellants that matched with those in the firearms. In response, the witness submitted that he did not do anything in the car because that was outside his scope of work.

After that, the lawyer asked the witness if he would agree with him that his report did not help them to determine if the bullet fired from the gun, which he examined, caused the hole in the car.

However, the witness responded to the negative. His argument was that the bullet was not availed to him.