Cape Town - The cellphone records of the bodyguards of slain steroid king Brian Wainstein came under scrutiny in the Western Cape High Court yesterday at the ongoing trial of murder-accused Mark Lifman and Jerome “Donkie” Booysen.
After a week-long delay, Warrant Officer Mias Engelbrecht returned to court under cross-examination by defence teams as hundreds of files were scrutinised yesterday.
This follows the testimony of a former bodyguard of Wainstein, who revealed that he, along with his brother, who may not be named, handed over their cellphones to the Hawks during their arrest.
It is believed the cellphone files will provide evidence on what led up to the 2019 murder.
The bodyguard has already told the court how he was introduced to Wainstein and stationed at his Constantia home to help keep him safe.
The bodyguard has fingered various influential figures, including Lifman, Booysen and international fugitive Kishor “Kamal” Naidoo as being behind the assassination.
In his testimony, the witness told the court in detail of meetings and calls where plans to murder Wainstein were discussed. He even admitted to betraying his former boss by helping plan his murder and later took over the steroid trade but failed.
Over the past two weeks, Englebrecht has taken to the stand to reveal how comprehensive cellphone files were downloaded and stored for the investigation.
The bodyguard told the court that prior to his arrest he had downloaded a call recorder app amid calls from the SA Revenue Service and he had kept it on his phone.
Engelbrecht explained that he downloaded “everything that was humanly possible” from the devices as the instructions of the investigators were to extract all the information they could.
The trial continues today.
Meanwhile, Booysen’s rival, Nafiz Modack, will also return to the Western Cape High Court today, where a different Hawks team, that also used the same software, will further outline their findings against his co-accused, Zane Kilian.
mahira.duval@inl.co.za
Cape Argus