Africa-Press – South-Africa. The man the State alleges is the shooter in the Pete Mihalik murder trial insists he spent the day of the killing concluding a Kruger Rand deal and taking his girlfriend to get her hair done.
And while she was at the salon, he received news of a family emergency and had to rush home from Cape Town to KwaZulu-Natal.
Sizwe Biyela, his cousin, Nkosinathi Khumalo, and Vuyile Maliti are on trial for the lawyer’s murder and attempted murder of his two children when he dropped them off at school in Green Point on 30 October 2018.
All three have pleaded not guilty.
Biyela has testified he was in a car concluding a R200 000 Kruger Rand deal between his cousin, Maliti, and a gold coin dealer at the time of the murder.
However, his cross-examination has been exhaustive, with the State clarifying every tiny detail presented through his evidence-in-chief.
On hearing about the family emergency, prosecutor Greg Wolmarans asked Biyela who had called him and for the injured person’s name.
In the stuffy courtroom where the air conditioning leaves people in danger of nodding off, Biyela spelt out Mhlonipheni for the record, as the person who called him, and his late brother, Siphamandla, as the name of the person who had been injured.
Biyela testified when he got the news that Siphamandla was injured, he went to Shoprite in Langa to buy a bus ticket and headed for the Bellville bus station to get back to Durban for the family crisis.
Wolmarans stared long and hard at Biyela and said: “Your clothing bothers me.”
Wolmarans asked him why he had no change of clothing with him when he was arrested at the bus station.
“Did you have a clothing bag stored somewhere?” he asked.
“No,” he answered. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes when I came to Cape Town.”
Wolmarans commented: “Really, Mr Biyela, is it correct? So, you didn’t even have spare underpants?”
Biyela said although he had left Durban on 27 October, he had not been planning on staying in Cape Town long.
A statement was handed in that was purportedly made by Maliti after his arrest. In it, he said he changed out of a checked shirt he was wearing at the shooting. He denied making this statement.
Two of the three accused have been in custody since the day of the shooting in 2018. Maliti presented himself to the police when he heard they wanted to question him.
The trial was adjourned until Tuesday for further cross-examination.
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