Fingerprint matches hit accused
WHILE the alleged hit men on trial for killing Mmakau SAPS constable Solomon Lucky Sebati and his entire family contradict each other about who pulled the trigger, fingerprints found on the family’s stolen vehicle tell a different story.
According to the confession statement of Kagiso Mokone, one of the alleged hit men behind the killing of Sebati and his family on the night of December 6, 2016, he was the getaway driver responsible for driving a white Chrysler vehicle of the officer.
Kagiso Mokone detailed how his cousin and co-accused, Tumelo Mokone, went into the family house and shot Sebati, his wife, daughter and young son, while he stayed outside to prepare their getaway vehicle.
This was in contradiction to his cousin’s confession statement read out in court on Tuesday, in which Tumelo claimed it was Kagiso Mokone who went inside the house with Onthatile Sebati, the family’s only surviving member and alleged hit mastermind.
The State, however, threw a spanner in the works for the accused yesterday as they called Colonel Neels Botha, a fingerprint expert, as well as a representative from FNB. According to Botha, the police had found the top part of the left-hand thumbprint on the door handle of the driver’s side of the family’s stolen vehicle.
He told the court that they were able to identify and positively match the fingerprint found on the vehicle with that of Tumelo. He testified he had conducted the verification of the fingerprint again in the morning as he took the prints of Tumelo in the presence of his defence counsel.
Meanwhile, Tshepo Khutsone, the local market operations manager at FNB, brought bank statements of the accused which showed transactions conducted between the trio in 2020.
Khutsone told the court that an amount of R100 000 was transferred from Sebati’s Capitec account into Tumelo’s account on January 23, 2020.
On the same day, Tumelo allegedly conducted two transactions in the amount of R25 000 each into the account of Mokone.
Following the testimony of Botha and Khutsone, the trial was postponed and set down to resume from March 14 to 23.