'Docket accusing Kelly not official document': Senzo Meyiwa murder trial

The second docket, which accuses singer Kelly Khumalo and those who were with her in the house where Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead, was only an internal opinion.

This was revealed on Monday in a response from director of public prosecutions (DPP) South Gauteng official advocate Andrew Chauke, which defence advocate Zandile Mshololo read out in the Pretoria high court.

“This office did not make any decision or otherwise regarding the case docket. The alleged document does not have any status [and] was an internal opinion from a junior advocate which was without merit,” Mshololo said, reading the DPP's response.

Mshololo received the response on Monday morning after the state, led by advocate George Baloyi, shared the second docket on June 8 . The docket was opened in January 2019, five years after Meyiwa was killed.

In the docket, Khumalo and those who were in the house on the night Meyiwa was killed are the accused. The document was first mentioned when advocate Malesela Teffo, for accused one to four, cross-examined Sgt Thabo Mosia, the state’s first witness.

Teffo used it to argue that the five men on trial had nothing to do with Meyiwa’s death. He alleged in court that Khumalo shot Meyiwa by mistake and she and other people in the house hatched a plan to suggest the Bafana Bafana star had been killed in a robbery.

Baloyi told the court the state became aware of the second docket in January .

“I wrote a letter on March 23 directed to the investigating officer Lt-Col [Joyce] Buthelezi, requesting a copy of the docket so that it could be disclosed to the defence. I gave the deadline of the end of March to submit the docket.

“Before the end of March she [Buthelezi] came to my office with Teffo. [And] instead of handing the docket to us, it was only handed over to Teffo.”

Baloyi said even the investigating team in the docket that is before the court did not have a copy of it.

This second docket has become central to the case, as the defence has used its contents to discredit Mosia's testimony.

Mshololo said the failure of the state to disclose it violated her client's constitutional right to have all the information required to prepare for trial.

“The state had the duty to disclose this docket ... The state could have sought an order in this court compelling the SAPS to deliver such a docket. What makes it worse, the state allowed my client to plead without giving me the second docket ... and that amounts to a miscarriage of justice,” Mshololo said.

Meyiwa was killed at his then girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s home in Vosloorus on the East Rand in an alleged robbery that shocked the nation.

Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi, Mthobisi Prince Mncube, Mthokoziseni Maphisa and Sifisokuhle Nkani Ntuli have been charged with his murder. The five face charges of premeditated murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of firearms without a licence and illegal possession of ammunition.

Their appearance in court is based on the first docket which was opened in 2014, the year Meyiwa was killed.

The trial continues.

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