Forced confessions cited
PRETORIA - The advocate defending four of the accused in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial said he would bring a formal application for a trial within a trial after arguing in the Pretoria High Court yesterday that his clients’ rights have been violated. “I am challenging the State to say we cannot proceed before we have a trial within a trial and ascertain that my clients were not wrongfully charged,” said advocate Malesela Teffo.
He said the continuation of the cross-examination of forensic officer Sgt Thabo Mosia would be a futile exercise.
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He claimed confession statements obtained from two of his clients were made under duress, and when his clients appeared at a Boksburg Court in 2020, they were not adequately informed of the accusations against them. “Their constitutional rights have been violated. When they appeared in Boksburg, , they were not charged or given the reason they had to be in court. That is where, for the first time, South Africans saw the accused refusing to enter the accused box,” Teffo said.