THE Senzo Meyiwa’s murder trial started off with a heated clash between the lawyer of accused one to four, TT Thobane and Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela.
This comes after Thobane requested state witness and Meyiwa’s childhood friend, Tumelo Madlala, to take out his phone and tell him the time he left his place to come to court.
Thobane asked Madlala to estimate the time he began testifying in today’s proceeding. After estimating, Thobane said you are good to estimate now but when you are supposed to estimate on the other things you can’t, isn’t that amazing?
“I can because this is happening now. But with other things, they have happened long time ago so I can’t remember those,” said Madlala
Thobane further asked him what time he left his place to come to court, but the state objected to that, stating that this might compromise his safety.
Judge Maumela agreed and told Thobane to ask another question because Madlala won’t answer that, but Thobane insisted on asking the question further.
He said the court needs to allow him to finish responding to the state’s objection before the court can decided to rule on it.
Maumela told Thobane to ask another question or sit down.
“Don’t say I must sit down, your honor,” said Thobane.
Maumela further asked Thobane why must he always want to challenge him when he makes a ruling.
He accused him of trying to show off.
“If my ruling is wrong, you have other channel to use to challenge that. I expect you to do that since you are a lawyer.
“We are not going to compromise the security of anyone in this court. I made that ruling. Let’s move to a following question,” said Maumela.
