Court hears Ntanzi made first confession three days after his arrest

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Three days following accused 2, Bongani Ntanzi’s arrest on the 16th of June 2020, he chose to make his first confession statement to a Peace Officer at the Moroka Police Station. This is according to the state’s latest witness Leiutenant Colonel Mohale Raphadu, who says Ntanzi chose to tender his first confession without legal representation. 

Raphadu says he received a call from Brig. Gininda on the 18th of June 2020 to take down a confession from accused 2, Bongani Ntanzi.

On the 19th he went to the Moroka Police Station in Soweto where Ntanzi was brought to him by an EMPD officer. #SABCNews #SenzoMeyiwaTrial

— Sipho King K Kekana (@KingKAzania) October 25, 2023

Raphadu says Ntanzi’s constitutional rights were explained to him as per Section 35 of the constitution including the right to remain silent and the warning that anything he said could be held against him in a court of law, among others. 

“Do you have wish to contact a legal practitioner of your own choice or apply to legal aid before you proceed to make this statement. The answer was ‘No’,” says Raphadu. 

“Do you have the name of a legal practitioner or an attorney that I can call now. The answer was that I do not have any lawyer and I do not want the use of an attorney, neither the legal aid, I am giving freely this statement.” 

The defense has told the court that they will be contesting the admisisility of this confession statement for the same reasons as they with the second confession statement Ntanzi made to Magistrate Vivian Cronje at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court five days later. Regarding the Boksburg confession, Cronje has told the court that Ntanzi was legally represented by a man named Dominic Mjiyako, whom Ntanzi has denied knowing.  

The lanky accused who worked at a mine in Rustenburg before his arrest, was taken into custody on the 16th of June for illegal possession of ammunition and immediately thereafter, appeared before the Tlhabane Magistrate’s Court before he met his friend Jack Buthelezi whom he told he had been arrested in relation to Meyiwa’s murder. 

After first telling the court that Ntanzi had told him he was arrested for having killed the former Bafana Bafana captain while he was at a party with his friends in Vosloorus, Buthelezi made a spectacular u-turn under cross-examination. This when he then told the court Ntanzi had said the police were the ones who had said he and his friends had murdered Meyiwa at a party in Vosloorus. 

His fellow accused, Muzi Sibiya was on the other hand arrested on the afternoon of the 30th of May 2020 in Tembisa and tendered a confession a few hours later to Colonel Mhlanganyelwa Mbotho at the Diepkloof Police Station. The admissibility of this confession has also been challenged with accusation of torture and coercion.  

Court adjourned early on the state’s request to allow a court interpreter, who they say was feeling ill, time to recover.  

The trial will continue tomorrow morning with Raphadu still on the witness stand.