‘Accused no longer wanted wife dead’
During closing arguments in the case involving a former police officer accused of orchestrating a hit on his estranged wife, the man’s lawyer claimed a confession statement was unduly forced out of him.
Advocate Gerrit Cilliers also said the state’s claim that cellphone records positively linked him and his five co-accused to the murder was circumstantial.
In his heads of argument, Cilliers, for Mlungisi Tsitsi, 37, told the court that his client was unduly forced to make a confession statement implicating himself and a further co-accused in the plot to kill his policewoman wife, Nomathamsanqa Ivy Mtwesi, 36.
Cilliers told the court that at the time of Tsitsi’s arrest he was told that if he co-operated and gave a statement he would be allowed to go home to attend to his wife’s funeral arrangements.
Tsitsi allegedly then gave a statement which implicated one of his co-accused, Ndiphe Soqokomashe, 48, in the plot to kill Mtwesi.
Mtwesi was shot dead outside her Motherwell home on November 12 2015 as she arrived home after working at the Zwide police station.
During a trial-within-a-trial, judge Irma Schoeman ruled the confession admissible.
On Tuesday, Cilliers asked Schoeman to reconsider the ruling and deem the statement inadmissible.
Tsitsi, along with Soqokomashe, Sicelo Mbanga, 31, Thembani Rorwana, 34, Msindisi Bhebhula, 27, and Luyanda Nyumka, 38, have been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
They all pleaded not guilty. Cilliers said there was no direct evidence linking Tsitsi to the murder, bar the statement, and that cellphone records linking all the accused to the crime by placing them at specific places, including the crime scene, was circumstantial.
“There is absence of proof that [Tsitsi] was involved in the murder of his wife,” he said.
He said if the statement remained admissible, his client should still not be found guilty of murder but rather of conspiracy to commit murder.
In his statement, Tsitsi admitted he was angry at his wife for her alleged extramarital affairs and had discussed having her killed with Soqokomashe.
“But [Tsitsi] did not want to know the persons or the names of the people who were going to kill his wife,” Cilliers said.
According to the statement, Mtwesi was supposed to be killed in September 2015 but that did not happen, nor did it materialise in October.
“[Tsitsi] only heard on November 12 [2015] that his wife was killed.
“At the time of her death, [Tsitsi] was no longer angry or frustrated.
“At the time [Mtwesi] was killed, he did not want her dead any more,” Cilliers said.
Cilliers, also representing Rorwana, said there was no evidence that his client had participated in the crime.
The case continues.