Delay in sentencing Bozwana’s killers adds to litany of hold-ups
IT IS nearly a year since Mamelodi businessman Vusi “Khekhe” Mathibela and his three accomplices were convicted of the 2015 murder of billionaire businessman Wandile Bozwana, but they are yet to be sentenced.
Sentencing proceedings were postponed once again yesterday in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, this time because advocate Anneline van den Heever, who appeared on behalf of accused Sipho Patrick Hudla and Robert Mutapa, was ill. The lawyer appearing for accused Bonginkosi Paul Khumalo was also not present as he too was sick.
As Judge Papi Mosopa’s roll is jam packed until the end of the year, the matter was due to be postponed to August. Judge Mosopa, however, had put his foot down and postponed the sentencing proceedings to May 29.
The judge said three of the accused had been awaiting trial in jail since their arrest in 2015, and it was not in the interest of justice that they had to wait for so long to get certainty about their future.
The judge pointed out that he was an acting judge when the trial started in 2017, and he was now a fully appointed judge. He also commented that the four were convicted in June last year, yet they were still waiting for their matter to be finalised.
The judge said Bozwana’s widow, Tsholofelo Bozwana, and his business partner, Mpho Baloyi, who was shot during the murder, were awaiting closure. Both were also waiting for their victim impact reports to be handed to court as part of the pre-sentencing proceedings.
The defence indicated that they will call a social worker to testify in mitigation of sentence on behalf of the four men.
Judge Mosopa ordered that all the lawyers be present when the matter resumes at the end of this month. The judge made it clear that he would not tolerate further postponements.
Although the trial began in 2017, it has been marred by a series of delays including legal counsel for the accused indicating that they were unable to consult with their clients during their stay at the correctional facility in Pretoria.
There were further delays in the trial in 2019 when Hudla and Mutapa challenged the admissibility of their confessions. They asserted that the confessions were not made voluntarily, but obtained under duress.
The matter was then set down for 2021. However, it was hit with further delays as defence counsels applied for the acquittal of the four accused, stating that the prosecution had failed to present the court with evidence linking them to the matter.
Once that failed, legal counsel for the men asked for yet another postponement to call in their own facial recognition expert to dispute CCTV footage obtained identifying Mutapa, as well as to scrutinise the associated forensic cellphone evidence.
Bozwana died in a hail of bullets on October 2, 2015, when he stopped at a traffic light on the Garsfontein N1 off-ramp. Baloyi managed to drive to a nearby petrol service station to seek help. Bozwana died in hospital later that day.