Cape Town - Alleged underworld kingpin Nafiz Modack has been vindicated amid claims that he manipulated court documents to mislead his legal team.
The confusion unfolded at the Western Cape High Court on Monday as Modack’s Legal Aid lawyer questioned the Hawks about claims that slain Anti-Gang Unit detective Charl Kinnear was meeting with alleged Sexy Boys gang boss, Jerome “Donkie” Booysen.
This comes amid the mammoth underworld trial where Modack and 14 others are facing a string of charges linked to the murder of Kinnear and the botched hit on criminal defence attorney William Booth. Advocate Bash Sibda shocked the court this week when he hammered Hawks detective Edward du Plessis about the pinging of Kinnear and Booysen’s cellphones by Modack’s co-accused, Zane Kilian.
Sibda produced a list of pings. Gasps were heard when he highlighted two dates where he claimed Kinnear and Booysen’s phones were pinging at the same location. He further claimed that the ping lists showed that Kinnear was even at a home owned by Booysen near Bellville South.
The adamant detective insisted Sibda was wrong and the matter was put on hold for the State prosecutors to verify the document. After the lunch break, Du Plessis told the court that it was found that Modack had manipulated the list of pings and incorrectly labelled it as Kinnear’s phone when in fact it was the list produced under Booysen’s cellphone.
Yesterday morning, Sibda once again shocked the court when he revealed that Modack was not the cause of the confusion and instead his legal assistant had made an error when printing the documentation for his consultations. Sibda was reprimanded by Judge Robert Henney who said the questioning caused aspersions on the character of Kinnear.
“Don’t jump the gun … Make sure of your facts. You withdraw those questions,” Judge Henney warned.
The trial continues.
mahira.duval@inl.co.za
Cape Argus