Aspects of Mbense murder case questioned in court

The six accused in the Emmanuel Mbense murder case appeared in the Brakpan Magistrate’s Court on August 27 for their bail application to proceed.

The representation for applicants one, two, three and four cross-examined Independent Police Investigative Directorate investigating officer Nomsa Masuku on her opposition to the bail applications.

Advocate Marius Wyngaard, defending Cobus Janse van Rensburg or applicant one, took to the stand again to further cross-examine Masuku after his earlier cross-examination concluded in an earlier appearance.

Notably, he questioned the torture-to-death narrative of the State, reading from the postmortem examination report and claiming that no injuries other than to the head and face of Mbense were noted.

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Masuku denied that there were no other injuries, and clarified that the coroner will testify during the actual trial as to the evidence of the torture claims.

Crystal Keevy followed this with her cross-examination, which she kept brief, before the case was postponed to August 31 for a further bail application.

She claimed that her clients, applicants three and four, Adrian Mackenzie and Keisha-Leigh Stols, could not be held to the robbery with aggravating circumstances charge as they did not participate in the assault.

She also attacked the State’s position that they had motive for robbing Mbense, stating that they were not members of private security, and therefore did not have a claim to 10% of the stolen stock.

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Masuku said that they could have had motive, as they were not on duty when they went to the scene.

Keevy questioned why the State would identify a witness who allegedly claimed to have been threatened by the group if it believed the accused posed a threat to the remaining witnesses. Masuku responded that the witness was already known to the accused.

Regarding the alleged threats to witnesses, Keevy cited a statement by Marius van der Merwe, which stated that no one other than Wiandre Pretorius had actually made any threats to anyone in the group.

Masuku quoted that applicant four said: “No one must talk about it on the phone,” during a meeting after the incident, but Keevy said that this did not seem like a threat.