Keenan Mokwena, the second accused implicated in the Luke Tibbetts murder case, will not be granted bail.
“The court has found that the release of this applicant on bail will not be in the interest of justice,” Magistrate Elmarie Engelbrecht said in the Sophiatown District court on 18 August.
Mokwena is facing charges of pointing a firearm and attempted murder. He was shot in the arm in the gunfire that ended three-year-old Luke Tibbetts’ life. Tibbetts’ funeral was on 16 August, and was attended by hundreds of mourners.
“The accused was pointing a firearm at another person. That person retaliated, and a child was shot,” police witness Sergeant Jacobus Fourie testified.
Fourie said that the police had been unable to recover the firearm that witnesses saw Mokwena holding in the shooting on 2 August. Magistrate Engelbrecht said that it was probable that the accused had tampered with the evidence or destroyed it. Mokwena does not have a licence to own a firearm.
He has been involved in six previous cases from fraud to armed robbery, but has never been convicted.
“The accused may not have a conviction to his name, but he seems to often be in the thick of criminal activities,” prosecutor Cobus Ehlers told the court.
The court heard that 335 Westbury community members submitted a petition to deny bail to both the accused in this case.
“The community is affected by this case,” Magistrate Engelbrecht said.
“We simply cannot ignore that.”
Mokwena rested on the bench for most of the bail hearing. Dressed in a black jacket, he seemed content to simply watch the proceedings. Mokwena’s case was postponed to 3 September, and he will remain in custody until then.
The man accused of shooting Luke Tibbetts will be appearing in the Magistrates’ Court on 29 August, and will be appearing in the Johannesburg High Court on 3 September on three other pending charges of murder and attempted murder.
