An accused in the Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala trial asked to be excused from court while evidence that does not concern her is heard, so she could focus on her studies.
Judge Cassim Moosa refused the application in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday.
Nthabiseng Zandile Nzama, the fifth accused, is charged in only three of the 25 counts before the court, all relating to money laundering.
Her counsel, Advocate Timothy Chauke, applied under the Criminal Procedure Act for her to be absent and for her affidavit to be entered into the record.
In it, Nzama said she was enrolled at Stadio Higher Education for an honours degree in commerce, and that the trial was taking up too much of her time.
“The lengthy duration of this trial, together with the daily travel between Pretoria and Johannesburg, consumes the greater part of each weekday,” she said.
“By the time court adjourns and I return home, I am physically and mentally exhausted, leaving little or no meaningful opportunity to devote to my academic responsibilities.”
She said much of the evidence had nothing to do with her.
“My continued attendance during evidence that does not implicate me serves no practical purpose and places an unnecessary burden upon me without advancing the interest of justice,” she said.
Nzama said she was not trying to avoid her trial, that her legal team would remain in court throughout, and that she would return the moment any evidence touched her.
The state did not oppose the application.
But Moosa questioned whether the law allowed it, noting that criminal proceedings must, as a rule, take place in the presence of the accused.
He drew counsel to a paragraph in the amended indictment alleging that all five accused acted with common purpose to commit the offences, a doctrine that could tie Nzama to more than her three counts.
The state said it was starting its case with the shootings rather than the money laundering, and that it would allege the white BMW said to have carried the gunmen who fired on the first witness and on taxi boss Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni was at one stage registered in Nzama’s name.
After the adjournment, Moosa refused the application.
“It is ordered that the application for the relief to be granted is hereby refused,” he said.
Nzama is one of five accused in a case built on three alleged hit plots ordered, the state said, by tenderpreneur Matlala.
The targets were Sibanyoni, Matlala’s former girlfriend, actress Tebogo Thobejane, and music producer Seunkie “DJ Vetteys” Mokubung, with bystanders caught in the gunfire each time, which is why the five face 11 counts of attempted murder among the 25 charges.
The remaining charges included conspiracy to commit murder, fraud, money laundering, and the illegal possession of prohibited firearms and ammunition.
Matlala is in the dock with Nzama, alleged gunmen Musa Kekana and Tiego Floyd Mabusela, and his wife Tsakani Matlala.
Earlier on Monday, the court heard the first cross-examination of a private security officer who said he identified Kekana, the first accused, at the scene of his arrest.
The officer, the state’s last witness on a roll of 88, could not be filmed or photographed, and his evidence formed part of a trial within a trial.
That is a separate hearing, held inside the main trial, in which the court decides whether a piece of evidence may be used at all.
Here it must decide whether anything police obtained when Kekana was arrested on April 17 2024 can be used against him, after Kekana argued the arrest was unlawful.
The witness had told the court he watched two men arrive at a property in Kew, a Johannesburg suburb, in a white Hyundai i20 and leave in a Mercedes-Benz Viano, and recognised the driver by his long-sleeved mustard top.
Kekana’s counsel, Advocate Riaan Gissing, said the top proved nothing.
“You would agree with me that there are millions of long-sleeved mustard-coloured shirts,” he said.
“I agree,” the witness said.
The witness stuck to his version, insisting it was the same shirt he had seen on the man who drove into the property and the man who drove out.
Gissing said the officer’s statement, written the night of the arrest, described the mustard top but nothing of the driver’s face.
“I put it to you that the reason why you did not insert it, and the only logical conclusion, is because you never saw the face of the driver of the Hyundai,” he said.
“That’s incorrect, my lord,” the witness said.
On Kekana’s instructions, Gissing put it to the witness that Kekana was not the driver.
He said Kekana was at his home in Kew when a tenant arrived in the Hyundai, then left in his Mercedes with another man and drove to a friend’s house, where police were waiting.
The witness rejected that account.
He was later excused, and the state called its third witness, whose evidence continues.
The trial within a trial continues.
