Africa-Press – South-Africa. A police officer has rubbished the notion that the confession statement of a 17-year-old “hitman”, accused of gunning down the parents and two siblings of his then 16-year-old employer, was not lawfully obtained. A woman and the two alleged hitmen that she employed appeared in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday.
All three accused, who cannot be named because they were minors at the time the crimes took place, pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder, one count of theft and one count of robbery with aggravating circumstances.
After the State prosecutor, Eric Sihlangu, briefly led the evidence of the first police officer at the scene in Mmakau Village, in Brits, on 6 December 2016, it turned to the confession statements by the accused.
\Sihlangu announced that the State would be admitting confession statements made by all three accused.
However, the legal representatives for the accused told the court they would be challenging the admissibility of the confessions.
Trial within a trial
After the court ordered that a trial within a trial be held, Sihlangu called Captain Kandalo Dlamini to the stand.
Dlamini testified that he was called in to take the statement of one of the alleged hitmen following their arrest in December 2021.
Dlamini went through the processes he followed, including introducing himself as a police officer and reading out the accused’s constitutional rights.
“I further advised that, if he was coerced into saying anything, he should tell me,” Dlamini said. Importantly, Dlamini said he also gave the accused an opportunity to have a legal representative during the taking of the statement.
The accused allegedly told Dlamini that he had already met with an attorney, by the name of Mr Motsepe, who gave him the go-ahead to give a statement.
Dlamini maintained that the accused was aware of all his rights, but still wanted to make a statement. Had the accused asked for a lawyer, Dlamini testified that he would have stopped the interview and ensured that Motsepe was present before continuing.
During cross-examination, the accused’s advocate, Nelson Khoza, put it to Dlamini that his client was not afforded the right to make a statement with his lawyer present. The defence further claimed the accused refused to sign the statement, but that he was forced.
It was also alleged that Dlamini told the accused there was no need for a lawyer and that there would be no prosecution once the statement was made.
Dlamini denied these allegations, and also he did not know that there were other accused because he had no details of the case. Khoza took exception to the fact that Dlamini did not know whether the accused had been charged or not before taking his statement.
The defence also took issue with Dlamini reading the accused’s rights to him in English before translating it into Setswana. Khoza pointed out that the accused’s rights were violated because there was no interpreter.
News24 previously reported the woman allegedly orchestrated the murder of her parents, her three-year-old brother and her 18-year-old sister. Her sister was pregnant at the time.
She allegedly let the two hitmen into the house and handed them her father’s firearm.
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