Cape Town - The Hawks detective who investigated the murder of slain Anti-Gang Unit detective Charl Kinnear has admitted that there is no direct link to alleged underworld kingpin Nafiz Modack, besides the pinging of his whereabouts.
The shocking revelation was made in the Western Cape High Court on Monday, as Captain Edward du Plessis came under fire by Modack’s Legal Aid lawyer, advocate Bash Sibda, as he ventilated his client’s version of the charges levelled against him.
Modack and 14 others face a plethora of charges linked to the murder of Kinnear and the attempted hit on criminal attorney William Booth, in the mammoth underworld trial currently under way before Judge Robert Henney.
The testimony of Du Plessis, who has been on the witness stand for several months, is at the centre of key evidence against Modack and his co-accused Zane Kilian, concerning the pinging of Kinnear and his associates in the months leading up to his murder in September 2020.
During the explosive cross-examination, Sibda insisted that footage of the shooting played a critical role in establishing a link between the shooter and the pinging of Kinnear’s phone.
In his address, Sibda told the court it was the State’s case that the pinging was a “tool of murder” and defence teams were determined to establish if the shooter had used a cellphone on the day to obtain information on Kinnear’s whereabouts.
Sibda was heard hammering Du Plessis, saying: “You can’t rule out that the shooter was acting on his own, man alone, with nobody influencing him or communicating with him and for his own reasoning he wanted to kill Kinnear”.
The detective conceded the Hawks were never able to find the shooter and there were other possibilities.
“We don’t know who the shooter is and we didn’t find him … anything is possible. But the thing that is very important is that accused 2 (Kilian) testified that shortly after the murder accused 3 (Ziyaad Poole) phoned him and said he must destroy the phones,” said Du Plessis.
Du Plessis highlighted the similarities between the attempted hit on Booth and the murder of Kinnear, and said the court could make inferences, but Judge Henney jumped in and asked what direct link there was to Modack. ‘’Besides the instruction to ping Mr Kinnear, what other link is there?” asked Judge Henney.
The detective conceded, saying: “There is no direct link.”
Earlier in the cross-examination, Modack was also called out for manipulating the ping list by handing it to Sibda as he insinuated that Kinnear had been pinged in the same location as alleged Sexy Boys gang boss Jerome “Donkie” Booysen.
During the questioning, Du Plessis maintained that the dates given by Modack’s lawyer were not correct, and after lunch it was discovered that Modack manipulated the list when handing it to his lawyer. The trial continues.