Following months of delayed bail proceedings, the prosecution and defence rounded off their arguments on Friday (January 25), after Free State police crime analyst, Karin Jacobs, was cross-examined giving Magistrate Marlene Marais an opportunity to deliberate on the matter and finalise her judgment.

The accused: businessman Stanley Bakili, Bayswater detective Molebatsi Mogoera, and court orderly Kagiso Chabane, are facing various charges including murder and extortion.

The men meanwhile remain in police custody.

It was further revealed in court that Bakili, who is being kept at Grootvlei prison, feels victimised. He requested that he be moved to a different correctional facility, specifically the one in Bainsvlei, where the police officers are being detained due to safety concerns.

Advocate Izak Nel, on behalf of Bakili, told the court that his client no longer feels safe in that prison.

Magistrate Marais advised Nel to lodge a formal application with another magistrate on the matter after she delivered her judgment regarding bail on Tuesday.

During the proceedings crime analyst Jacobs was challenged several times by the accused’s legal counsel.

Nel accused the provincial crime analyst at the South African Police Services of being biased against his client. He says Jacobs is not being objective when carrying out her work on this case. He cited instances where she alleged Bakili’s criminal record suggest that “he has never worked a day in his life,” something which Nel vehemently disputed.

The advocate says Jacobs goes as far as defending the deceased in some of her responses when it was revealed that Siemens was not as ‘innocent’ as initially thought.

Advocate Johan Vorster, appearing on behalf of the court orderly, Chabane, argued on the other hand that the evidence linking his client to the murder is only circumstantial. He maintains there is no direct evidence gathered by authorities that indicate that Chabane helped orchestrate the CityMed Managing Director’s murder on 10 May 2018.

Vorster says only three things implicate his client: a hired car, telephone calls between Chabane and Bakili, as well as the statement by convicted assassin turned state witness, Xolisile Mbebetho.

Vorster cast doubt on the circumstantial evidence arguing that the court orderly coached Bakili’s soccer team and that is the reason the two were in contact, while in Mbebetho’s statement, Chabane isn’t named directly but is described as a “police officer in uniform from the court”.

Prosecutor De Nysschen did not dispute nor object to Vorster’s questions on the state witness’s statement in court.

De Nysschen referred to case law when concluding his argument on the matter, adding that the accused have failed to show the exceptional circumstances that require them to be released out on bail.

After Marais delivers her judgment on Tuesday, alleged repeat offender and accused number five in the case, 29-year-old Mojalefa Jali Molusi, who was arrested in Phase 2 on Wednesday, January 9, is set to appear in the same courthouse the day after judgment for bail is delivered.

Molusi has been placed at the murder scene by authorities on the day that Siemens was murdered in the basement parking area of Preller Square in broad daylight.

OFM News