THE Durban Magistrate’s Court again refused to probe the circumstances of an identification parade of Ferrel and Darren Govender, the brothers accused of killing Durban businessman, Shailen Singh.
Singh was killed on December 29 on Meridian Drive in Umhlanga.
Yesterday, the court heard arguments from both the State and the
accused’s lawyers on whether the brothers should be granted bail or not. The State has alleged that the motive behind Singh’s killing was the love triangle that Singh and Ferrel were caught up in.
During proceedings, it was expected that both partied would present their heads of arguments, as agreed previously.
However, advocate Paul Jorgensen who represents the woman caught in the middle of the love triangle saga, said he wants to make an application on behalf of his client.
The woman, who cannot be named for security reasons, claimed that the State presented inaccurate to the court as she was never asked to provide a statement.
The court refused the application.
Heads of arguments were expected to be presented, however, the defence counsels questioned why the State did not make submissions on what happened at the identification parade.
The case’s investigating officer Warrant Officer Kumarasan Bob Pillay, in his affidavit stated that during the identification parade, the eyewitness to the shooting did not point to Ferrel as the shooter or as someone who was at the crime scene.
The defence had previously attempted to put this document before
the court but the request was dismissed.
Advocate Christo Van Schalkwyk, acting on behalf of Darren Govender, said they wanted to know if another person was pointed out by the eyewitness.
“Was someone else identified, was more than one person identified,” he asked.
Attorney Ravindra Maniklall, who represents Ferrel, said as an officer of the law he could not let this pass.
He said he was at the identification parade and at the time he was representing both the brothers and the only eye-witness did not point out either of them.
“The witness pointed out someone else and this works against the State.
I can’t sit here and let the court have any doubts about what happened,” he said.
The State’s senior public prosecutor Nkululeko Msiya reminded the court that it refused to entertain the issue of the identification parade.
“I sound like a broken record; they are trying again, we believe that this application has no merits,” he said.
Msiya said they had plenty of case law to support this. He said
they were avoiding turning a bail application into a trial.
“They (the defence) are seeking this document to prepare themselves for the trial,” he said.
He said the state would use the document from the identification parade at a later stage, with other evidence.
“This would be properly ventilated during the trial. Which is why we are not denying what happened at the identification parade,” said Msiya.
He said the document being sought by the defence contained the name of a witness and as the State they sought to protect all witnesses in the matter as there was a likelihood that they would be interfered with.
He said the investigation had not been completed, and Msiya accused the defence of wanting to get to the merits of the case in the bail application.
Advocate Michael Hellens, instructed by Maniklall during arguments, told the court that Ferrel was not a flight risk as his passport was with the police and had properties in the country. The matter was postponed to Thursday for the continuation of arguments before a decision on bail could be made.
DAILY NEWS