Charging alleged mastermind after Meyiwa murder trial will be near impossible

JOHANNESBURG - With the State’s case in the Senzo Meyiwa trial drawing to a close, lobby group AfriForum said it would be near impossible to charge the alleged mastermind after the current trial.

This weekend marked ten years since the Bafana Bafana captain was gunned down at singer Kelly Khumalo’s home, who was his girlfriend at the time.

It took police six years to make an arrest for the murder, and eight years for the trial to get underway.

Now, two years since the trial first started, proceedings continue to run with no end in sight.

"We cannot promise that we will be able to solve this but the promise we can give is that we will do our very best that we do everything we can to see that justice is done."

This was in 2019 – five years after the murder of Senzo Meyiwa – when his family turned to AfriForum for help as there had not been any arrests.

A year later, the five accused were charged and appeared in the Boksburg Magistrates Court.

But AfriForum’s advocate, Gerrie Nel, was not pleased that the alleged mastermind was not in the dock with the accused, a concern he still holds today.

"It’s very difficult to charge a mastermind later because the accused have gone through a trial. They have never admitted what they did.

"In all probability, the State will argue that their evidence should be rejected. Then to later use the same people to charge the mastermind won’t be very effective. I think it will be near impossible to prosecute a mastermind based on the evidence of a trial that’s taken this long."

The State has since revealed that it believes Khumalo is the mastermind, leading evidence that links phone calls between her and the accused.

Meanwhile, Nel has complemented the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the lead prosecutor in this matter, Advocate George Baloyi, for his work on the trial so far.