A total of 67 witnesses – including police officers, magistrates and forensic pathologists – are expected to testify in the state’s case against three suspended cops on trial for Nathaniel Julies's murder.
The state has lined up high-ranking police officials, including a brigadier and lieutenant-colonels as witnesses in the case against Constable Caylene Whiteboy, Sergeant Scorpion Ndyalvane and Sergeant Forster Netshiongolo.
Whiteboy and Ndyalvane are accused of Julies’s murder, defeating the ends of justice and possession of illegal ammunition.
Netshiongolo has been charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact and defeating the ends of justice.
Ndyalvane and Netshiongolo are also charged with perjury.
The trio have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them stemming from the August 26 2020 incident in Eldorado Park, south of Johannesburg.
The state has already called two witnesses, including Tasneen Kaldine who testified that she saw Julies’s body being dragged from beneath a truck where he was shot and put into a police van after his shooting.
Constable Mandla Sithole, who has been on the stand in the South Gauteng High Court sitting in the Palm Ridge magistrate’s court since last week Tuesday, testified about the events that led to Julies’s murder while recording his colleagues plotting to cover up the murder.
A doctor, four investigators from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, three cellphone experts, five forensic pathologists, Eldorado Park residents and 30 police officers from the trio’s police station will also be called to testify.
The names of other witnesses cannot be published until they have given testimony.
During cross-examination by Ndyalvane’s lawyer Adv Mandla Mnyatheni on his client’s alleged role in Julies’s murder and alleged subsequent cover up, Sithole told the court yesterday that he was traumatised after the teenager's shooting.
Responding to Mnyatheni’s question about what impact did Julies's shooting have on him, Sithole said: “There is nowhere where I indicated that the incident did not affect me. It affected me a lot. I was traumatised.”
Mnyatheni questioned Sithole about the two recordings between him and his colleagues.
After a series of questions to which Sithole responded by either saying “I don't know” or “I cant remember”, Mnyatheni grew frustrated and accused Sithole of being evasive and unreliable.
“The witness is not a reliable person, it is dangerous to take even a thread of what he is saying under oath,” Mnyatheli said when Judge Ramarumo Monama questioned the relevance of his line of questioning.
Last week during Sithole’s cross-examination by Whiteboy’s lawyer Adv Solly Tshivhase, Sithole told the court that he had been disinclined to involve himself in the alleged plot to cover up Julies’s murder.
Sithole explained that he did not like how the events were unfolding after the shooting.
“I made the recording because I did not like what was being planned after the boy [Julies] had been killed,” Sithole said.
In the recording, Whiteboy and Ndyalvane are heard piecing together their cover up story and roping in Netshiongolo to allegedly help them plant two 9mm cartridges at the scene of the crime to give credence to their claims.
The recording was extracted from Sithole’s phone and Whiteboy is heard saying: “... listen, we got information that there were two males standing at the container [truck] and they opened fire. The story is we heard a gunshot when we got to the container. I got out last and when I shot that child [Julies] ran into the crossfire...”
The trial continues.
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