Africa-Press – South-Africa. Defence lawyer Pete Mihalik was most likely killed by a semi-automatic 9mm Parabellum, Warrant Officer Aasiya Allie testified at the trial into his murder in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday.
The ballistics expert told Judge Constance Nziweni, that although the gun itself was never recovered, based on the bullet casings, jacket, and the bullet core found in Mihalik’s head, that was most likely the weapon used.
The capacity for devastation caused by the two bullets fired through his car window at a 90-degree angle was evident not only by Mihalik’s fatal injuries, but the neck wound his son sustained from a piece of the bullet.
Allie explained that she was on call on 30 October 2018, and was told to go out to the scene at 08:15, within an hour of the murder at the intersection of Thornhill and Cavalcade roads in Green Point.
Two shots had been fired close to the vehicle, with Mihalik in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes Benz AMG.
One hit him in the right temple, and the other skimmed the lower part of his face.
Pictures from the scene showed Mihalik slumped in a cut-off T-shirt after taking his last breath soon after the shooting.
One moment he was taking his children to school, listening to music and making the final grand customary roar up the hill towards the school, and the next, his life was snuffed out.
A previous witness Stiaan Kotze testified that when he ran down from his house nearby, he checked on Mihalik, but the well-known defence lawyer very soon simply swallowed and took his last breath.
Mihalik’s son was in the back seat bleeding, so Kotze frantically gave the boy his hoodie to stop the bleeding. A good Samaritan later rushed the boy to hospital when he started saying he was very sleepy and thirsty.
Mihalik’s teenage daughter was hysterical and kept pleading for help for her family.
She had been in the front seat and was not physically harmed.
Allie said that when she arrived at the scene, she noted a bullet jacket visible on the road surface beneath the driver’s side door, and a bullet casing next to an X-Trail, and another one under the X-Trail parked nearby.
She explained that the bullet jacket is the outer covering of a bullet and the internal covering is the core. The fired cartridge case is the object that ejects from the ejection port, once the gun is fired, from an opening on the side of the gun.
Sizwe Biyela, Nkosinathi Khumalo, and Vuyile Maliti are on trial for Mihalik’s murder, the attempted murder of his two children, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. They pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Police officer Charl Prins from the Sea Point police station took the witness stand next.
The trial continues.
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