Saga of the Meyiwa trial continues
Mbatha said that the police instead changed the plan when they saw a group of media journalists who were waiting for him outside his shack following his release.
The recent arrest, detention and release on bail of defence council Advocate Malesela Teffo, who is representing four of the five suspects accused of murder in the Senzo Meyiwa trial, has ruffled feathers.
It has also added fuel to the controversial killing of the country’s celebrated national goalkeeper.
Teffo was arrested inside the Pretoria Supreme Court on April 28 after a group of heavily armed members of the SAPS’s tactical unit stormed the courtroom, handcuffed and detained him in the cells below the court building.
Teffo was later released on R10 000 bail after he appeared before a magistrate at the Hillbrow Court on an unrelated case of failure to appear at the same court in January this year.
Zamokuhle Mbatha, the 37-year-old man who was initially arrested as the dread-locked Rastafarian who was described as the alleged suspect who fired the fatal shot that killed the former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper on October 26, 2014, has told Kathorus MAIL that his arrest three weeks after Senzo’s death, was as equally dramatic and traumatic.
He told Kathorus MAIL that he was not surprised by the actions of the police in the advocate’s arrest.
Mbatha’s case was later thrown out of court due to a lack of evidence that could not place him at the scene of the crime.
He was, however, not returned to his rented backyard shack not far from the Khumalo family home in Kutlwanong Street where Senzo’s murder took place.
Mbatha said that the police instead changed the plan when they saw a group of media journalists who were waiting for him outside his shack following his release.
“They asked me where I would like to be dropped off. I asked to be taken to my parents’ home in another section of the informal settlement where they told me to get out and walk to my parents’ house.”
Mbatha said his parents, who had been listening on the radio about his court appearance that morning and later heard about his release, were shocked to see him walk through the front door alone.
Since his release by the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court, Mbatha said he has been living a solitary life as a recluse, shying away from the public as he still fears for his life.
“Although the case was dismissed by the Boksburg court, I was forced to avoid living my life freely . I was scared that some of Senzo’s fans and supporters of both Orlando Pirates and the national Bafana Bafana squad would not believe that I had been set free by the court because I was innocent,” explained Mbatha.
Mbatha also spoke about several anonymous threats to his life as well as to burn down his shack in Vosloorus, his parents’ home in Ponong in Vosloorus as well as the family homestead in KZN.
“I believe these were the same people who believed that I was responsible for the murder of Senzo,.”
According to Mbatha, who used to wash Senzo’s car whenever the goalkeeper visited his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo,, he was shocked when he was arrested by the police and accused of being the prime suspect.
“They (police) have disgraced my family name by labelling me a murderer in a crime I did not commit. I have not received an apology for my unlawful arrest and detention.”
Mbatha said he still does not feel 100% safe to step out of his yard and walk freely on the streets until the real killer or killers are brought to book.
“It’s been a difficult and traumatic eight long years for me.”
Regarding the trial, he said he lacks the words to express his emotions, especially after what happened at Pretoria High Court during the arrest of Teffo.
Mbatha refused to comment further saying he reserves his opinion until the end of the murder trial after judgement in the case is finally passed.
He was arrested based on an identikit drawn from statements given to the police by some of the witnesses who are alleged to have been inside Khumalo’s family house when Senzo was shot and killed.
Mbatha is suing the police for R10-million for his unlawful arrest.
“I did not kill Senzo, neither was I anywhere near Khumalo’s home on the evening when he was shot and killed,” Mbatha reiterated.
Among the high profile people in the legal fraternity who have slammed the defence advocates’ dramatic court arrest is Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, who has described Teffo’s arrest as “an assault on the dignity of the Judiciary”.
Zondo said he hopes there would be no further such arrests conducted by the police in future.
Joining Zondo’s condemnation, SAPS’s General Mawela also took a swipe at the police for how Teffo’s arrest was executed.
Several other legal experts have since joined the fray and also lambasted the police.
The Chief Justice’s office explained that the problem was not whether or not the arrest should have been made, but rather how the arrest was conducted by the police.
The incident has left the legal fraternity dismayed at what some of them have described as a “travesty of justice” and a “total disregard for the rule of law and utter disrespect of the country’s judiciary procedures and the Constitution of the land”.
Teffo was hand-cuffed and “frog-matched” out of the courtroom with his hands “cuffed’ behind and followed by about 10 heavily armed members of the tactical unit as he was led to the basement holding cells.
