Cellphone records undermine Kinnear grenade accused’s conspiracy claims

There are two versions about what happened before the attempted murder of anti-gang unit (AGU) detective Lt-Col Charl Kinnear in a hand grenade attack on his home in Cape Town in November 2019.

The lawyer for Amaal Jantjies, who is a co-accused in the hand grenade plot, told the Parow regional court on Tuesday that his client’s version was that she was part of a quid pro quo arrangement with the AGU, its commander and even National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) staff.

Jantjies claimed she and her gangster lover, Janick Adonis, agreed to help to stage an attack on the Kinnear family home as part of an elaborate scheme to trap alleged underworld boss Nafiz Modack.

In exchange, she received assurances from AGU commander Lt-Gen Andre Lincoln that he would either help her to secure bail for Adonis, or get a mitigated sentence if he pleaded guilty or was convicted.

“Version one is intricate but plausible,” her legal counsel said.

“I say it is plausible because she says she may have participated in an event, but that event was well-orchestrated and planned by [the police].”

The second version, he said, was that of the state, which submitted an affidavit on Tuesday opposing Jantjies’ release on bail.

In it, warrant officer Trevor Shaw, a member of the Hawks national task team sent from Pretoria to investigate the September 2020 murder of Kinnear, explained in detail how a woman motivated by her desire to help her manipulative jailed lover allegedly became a double agent and corrupted AGU members.

According to Shaw, Jantjies used underworld politics to foment tension and enabled an enraged Modack to allegedly carry out a potentially deadly act of vengeance.

The affidavit, which relies on witness statements from confidants in the alleged attempted murder plot and the highest-ranking member of the AGU, as well as detailed billing information from Jantjies’ cellphones, undermines her claims that she is an innocent woman whose only crime was helping the police.

Shaw's affidavit points out that nowhere in her cellphone communications, in which several attacks were planned on WhatsApp, was there any communication with Lincoln.

There was also no mention of him giving any instructions for her to stage an attack on Kinnear’s home, nor for her to go to Kinnear’s address, as she alleges. Nor does she request a hand grenade from him.

Instead, these orders appeared to come from Modack. 

It also emerged that Lincoln and Kinnear were told as far back as October 2019 that Modack had allegedly arranged for four Ukrainian hitmen to target them in Pretoria.

Shaw said it emerged from his investigation that this information was given to Kinnear by Adonis when he met the AGU detective in August 2019.

Judgment on Jantjies’ bail application was reserved.

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