Alleged underworld boss Nafiz Modack’s lawyers were set for an intense legal assault against an entrenched state prosecution team last week. Instead, both sides ended up being bogged down again in what appears to be an interminable legal cold war.
Modack was arrested on April 29 and was charged with plotting the murder of Anti-Gang Unit detective commander Lt-Col Charl Kinnear and for the attempted murder of Cape Town lawyer William Booth. He has been in custody since his arrest.
His was the second arrest in connection with the plot to kill Kinnear after avowed security consultant and former rugby player Zane Killian was arrested in September last year. Killian was detained after it was discovered he had intercepted Kinnear’s cellphone location more than 2,000 times, with increasing intensity leading up to the day of his murder.
The state alleges this information was requested by Modack. His alleged motive to kill Kinnear was the investigator’s incessant inquiry into the origin of Modack’s firearm licences. These are believed to have been acquired through the same alleged corrupt network of Central Firearms Registry police officials, also used by alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield to acquire his firearms licences.
Kinnear was killed outside his Bishop Lavis home in 28s gang turf by an unknown gunman. Sources say Gearing St is gang turf controlled by the Terrible Josters street gang, one of the 28s’ most vicious street outfits.
Modack faces more than 3,000 counts for his alleged pinging of numerous individuals. He also faces extortion, money laundering, conspiracy to commit murder and gang-related charges, all of which were consolidated under the Prevention of Organised Crimes Act (Poca).
The state alleges Modack, Killian, Modack righthand man and enforcer Jacques Cronjé, Ricardo Morgan, Anti-Gang Unit Sgt Ashley Tabisher, Junky Funky Kids gangster Janick Adonis and Adonis’s lover Amaal Jantjies worked together and played varying parts in common purpose, first to attempt to murder Kinnear in a November 2019 botched hand-grenade attack and then in his final assassination.
Under Poca the state hopes to charge the accused with racketeering charges that could carry far more severe punishment if they are convicted.
However, on Thursday defence counsel requested for the state to produce the prerequisite certificate, which needs to be signed off by the national director of public prosecutions, allowing the charge of racketeering to be added.
It appeared the prosecution had not yet been granted the certificate.
The state prosecutors accused the defence of abusing the bail process in order to extract information about the state’s case in preparation for the eventual trial.
The lawyers argued their clients no longer faced schedule 6 charges, but the prosecution pointed out the other charges faced by Killian and Modack, namely premeditated murder and attempted murder charges, were still schedule 6 offences, meaning the onus was still on the accused to prove it was in the interest of justice that they be released on bail.
The state prosecutors accused the defence of abusing the bail process to extract information about the state’s case in preparation for the eventual trial.
The defence counsel, bolstered by top lawyers from Gauteng who flew into Cape Town for Thursday’s hearing, appeared frustrated after the court ruled in favour of the state.
This was after the state cried foul when Modack’s counsel handed in an affidavit in support of his bail application and then told the court it wanted a chance to reply to the state’s responding affidavit.
The courthouse in Bishop Lavis was under heavy guard by members of police’s specialised National Intervention Unit.
Outside, Modack’s bodyguards stood among a small crowd of women, men and children wearing “Modack Group” masks that had been taxied to court from across Mitchell’s Plain as they were at all his previous appearances since his arrest.
Public order police kept a wide cordon around the court using barbed wire.
Some of the children, as young as 13, wore dirty clothes. Their faces looked weathered, and they instinctively begged for money from reporters to buy food, they said. Asked by Sunday Times Daily whether their parents knew they were at court and not in school, they said they were there with their parents’ consent.
The state is yet to respond to the allegations made in Modack’s affidavit, but he claimed:
- the state had attempted to delay his bail application;
- he did not commit any of the offences the state accused him of, and he is not being given enough specific information by the state as to what crimes they alleged he committed, and he can therefore not prepare a defence in support of his bail application;
- that he was involved in charitable work across the country and people who relied on his organisation for “their daily bread” were going hungry while he was incarcerated;
- those he fed did not believe he was a criminal and had signed petitions for his release.
He said the most relevant “personal circumstance” was the “ill-feeling” between him and “certain high-ranking police officers”.
He said “corrupt” bouncers employed in the Western Cape’s nightclubs sold narcotics to the young patrons of those clubs.
He claimed his commitment to fighting drug abuse among young people of his community put him on a collision course with drug dealers and corrupt police officers.
The matter was postponed until July 29.
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