Soshanguve shooting: Case against one of accused struck off the roll

Four people, including an off-duty police officer and a teenage girl, were shot dead shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day.

Four suspects were expected in court on Tuesday, however, only two whose names were called.

Audible gasps could be heard when Magistrate Swart struck the matter off the roll after the court found the police failed to ensure the accused was in court within the prescribed 48 hours.

Section 50(1)(c) of the Criminal Procedures Act provides that an accused person should be brought before the lower court as soon as possible but not later than 48 hours after the arrest.

The accused’s lawyer, Stevens Magoro, said that while officers were at liberty to rearrest his client, they should have followed due process.

"The court is upholding the law as it is. There’s nothing untoward. The police ought to have done their job properly, and they failed to do that."

Meanwhile, accused number four, who was also expected in court on Tuesday, was reportedly hospitalised and is expected to join two other accused in court this Friday.

His lawyer, Matlhatsi Madire, argued that the state had failed to produce indisputable proof that his client was indeed admitted at the George Mukhari Academic Hospital on Monday night.

It emerged in court that the accused four was booked out of the cells just after 7:20 pm. However, the state initially could not account for his whereabouts.

"We’ve done cases where a person is shot and is not brought to court. There would be a document from the hospital, or the said clinic, that is brought by the public prosecutor when that application is made. At this stage we don’t have that; we just have an SAP 10 'occurrence book'.

"It’s quite clear that police officers are not medical doctors. Since when does a court accept evidence of a police officer saying that someone is sick? It is on that basis that I am saying that the application is ill-founded," Madire told the court, as he argued that the case against his client should be struck off the roll.

He says he is "intrigued" by how the court reached a different decision for his client when he believes that because the pair were arrested on the same day – and the 48-hour period had lapsed for both by Monday.

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