‘Cat’ Matlala’s lawyer grills cop over ‘unlawful’ searches

Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala’s lawyer has argued that police had no evidence linking his co-accused Musa Kekana to the murder of engineering consultant Armand Swart and that officers failed to follow basic legal procedures during his arrest.

Advocate Annelene van der Heever cited incomplete SAPS documentation and alleged failures to comply with crime scene management regulations.

She argued in the high court in Johannesburg that police had no reasonable suspicion to search Kekana’s vehicle, submitting that the searches were “unlawful and illegal”.

Kekana, Matlala, his wife Tsakane Matlala, Tiego Floyd Mabusela, and his daughter Nthabiseng Nzama, face 25 charges including money laundering, conspiracy to commit murder and the attempted murders of actress Tebogo Thobejane and minibus taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni.

Kekana’s April 2024 arrest that is linked to the murder of Swart is now the subject of a trial-within-a-trial to determine whether firearms recovered during that operation may be admitted as evidence in the main trial.

Allegations are that those firearms were later linked to the attempted murders of Thobejane and Sibanyoni.

On the witness stand was SAPS tactical response team captain Phimi Sekgobela, who led the operation that resulted in Kekana’s arrest.

Van der Heever took Sekgobela through the SAPS national instructions governing crime scene management, establishing that he was the officer in charge until the crime scene commander arrived.

She then referred him to provisions requiring suspects to be removed from a crime scene and taken to the nearest police station without delay.

“It states that the first responder must arrange for the suspect to be removed from the crime scene as soon as possible if an arrest has been made. Did you do that?” she asked.

Sekgobela said he did not.

Van der Heever referred the court to the SAPS warning statements and the cell register, which reflected that Kekana had been arrested and booked for possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition rather than murder.

“I am going to argue that the SAPS document clearly shows they were arrested on a Bramley case for firearm and ammunition charges. Nothing is mentioned of murder,” Van der Heever said.

She also challenged the basis upon which police searched Kekana’s Mercedes-Benz after Swart’s murder.

“I put it to you further that if it was indeed so that everything turned around this purported vehicle, and you had yet to place objective facts before court about this vehicle, you would not have gone to Eighth Road [where the arrest took place]. You would have rushed to the place where the vehicle purportedly was and dealt with that situation there and then.

“I put it to you further that you could have, in your own mind, reacted as a police officer would have reacted if you knew a murder had taken place.”

Van der Heever ended her cross-examination by outlining why Sekgobela’s search and the arrest were unlawful.

“I put it to you that, based on your own evidence, you had no reasonable suspicion there in Eighth Road to arrest the people present there ... on the murder charge.

“You further had no reasonable suspicion that justified you searching that Viano [van] at Eighth Road. That your search of that vehicle was unlawful and illegal,” she said.

Sowetan