Court Weighs Legality of Police Arrest in Cartel Evidence Dispute

JOHANNESBURG HIGH COURT, Tuesday. A procedural hearing that will determine whether police-obtained evidence can be used against alleged cartel member Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and four co-accused resumed this week, with the lawfulness of an arrest at the heart of the dispute.

The trial-within-a-trial centres on whether statements and physical evidence gathered after the arrest of Musa Kekana on April 17, 2024 meet the constitutional threshold for admissibility. Kekana’s legal team has challenged both the legality of his detention and whether arresting officers properly observed his constitutional rights. The State must now demonstrate that the evidence survives those challenges before it can be placed before the court in the main proceedings.

Captain Alfred Sekgobela of the Tactical Response Team began testifying on Monday and is expected to continue presenting the State’s account of events. His evidence is intended to support earlier testimony from private security officer Christiaan Frederick Shepherd and to establish that police acted within their legal authority when they detained Kekana, hours after the killing of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart.

The defence has mounted a vigorous challenge to the identification of Kekana as the driver of a white Hyundai i20 that arrived at a property in Kew, Johannesburg. Shepherd testified that he recognised the vehicle’s occupant based on facial features, build and clothing. Defence advocate Rian Gissing, however, highlighted significant gaps in Shepherd’s police statements. The written records contained no mention of the driver’s facial characteristics, physical build or other distinguishing marks, despite Shepherd’s courtroom assertion that he identified Kekana by precisely these features.

Gissing also pressed Shepherd on inconsistencies in his description of the suspect’s clothing. Shepherd’s account shifted across different versions, from a shirt to a long-sleeved top and subsequently to a tracksuit top. When Gissing suggested that millions of people could be wearing long-sleeved mustard-coloured clothing, Shepherd conceded the point but maintained his certainty that the man who entered the Kew property and the man who left minutes later were the same individual wearing the same garment.

According to Kekana’s instructions to his legal team, he was at home when a tenant arrived in the Hyundai i20 and later departed in Kekana’s Mercedes with another man. Shepherd rejected this version entirely.

When Sekgobela testified about the arrest itself, he described arriving at the scene in a convoy of five heavily armed vehicles. Both men in the vehicle complied with orders to exit and raise their hands. Sekgobela said he searched them for weapons before informing them they were under arrest and explained their constitutional rights, including the right to silence, access to legal representation, the right to make a telephone call and the right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention. Both men, he testified, acknowledged understanding those rights.

By contrast, Kekana’s defence team has argued that he was not properly informed of his constitutional entitlements and that subsequent searches were conducted without judicial authorisation. The admissibility question turns on whether the court accepts the State’s account of how those rights were communicated and observed.

The main trial involves Matlala and four co-accused facing 25 charges spanning attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, fraud, money laundering and illegal possession of prohibited firearms and ammunition. The charges relate to alleged murder-for-hire plots targeting businessman Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni and five others, media personality Tebogo Thobejane and three others, and musician DJ Vettys and two others. Matlala stands trial alongside alleged gunmen Kekana and Tiego Floyd Mabusela, his wife Tsakani Matlala and Nthabiseng Zandile Nzama. Judge Cassim Moosa previously dismissed Nzama’s application to be excused from proceedings to complete her honours degree in commerce.

The outcome of the trial-within-a-trial will shape how much of the State’s evidence survives into the main hearing. Whether Sekgobela’s testimony on Tuesday is enough to satisfy Judge Moosa on the constitutional compliance question remains the central issue to watch.