Photo puts doubt on claim about availability of phones in prison
A photograph posted on Facebook a year ago has come back to bite members of an alleged hit squad, who insisted throughout their trial that it was near impossible to smuggle cellphones into prison – and it could therefore not have been their numbers linking them to the cold-blooded execution of a state witness.
The picture of Mawethu “Webber” Khaka, 29, holding a bottle of vodka in prison, was presented to the Port Elizabeth High Court yesterday, but it was the cellphone in his cellmate’s hand that had state advocate Marius Stander smiling confidently as he closed his case.
Ndumiso “Twenty” Booi, 24, of New Brighton, Mzolimo Makisi, 33, of Motherwell, and Khaka, of Soweto-on-Sea, opted not to testify, prompting the defence to rest without presenting any evidence.
The men’s lawyers said they would instead present argument before judgment today.
The three men are accused of conspiring to kill a victim in a hijacking case after she pointed out Booi in a lineup as the alleged perpetrator. But on June 12 2013, just two days before Zanele Jonga, 32, was due to testify against him, she was executed by two men outside her Motherwell workplace.
Through meticulous cellphone tower plotting, the state concluded that Booi had organised the hit from his St Albans Prison cell.
Judge Dayalin Chetty heard that Booi had allegedly contacted his girlfriend, Thandeka Mange, 28, of Kwazakhele, who then put him in contact with Makisi and Khaka.
Cellphone expert Krishnan Pillay said Makisi and Khaka’s cellphones had been picked up in the Motherwell area at the time of the shooting.
The men allegedly walked up to Jonga, who was sitting in a car outside a doctor’s surgery, and opened fire.
Prior to that, and in an alleged attempt to determine her whereabouts, Jonga was phoned from Mange’s Newton Park office landline.
