The state has officially closed its case in the mammoth underworld trial against Nafiz Modack and his co-accused after a whopping 107 days.
Prosecutors at the Western Cape High Court concluded the testimony of their last state witness namely, Lieutenant-Colonel Pieter Joubert of the National Task Team, established to investigate the murder of slain Anti-Gang Unit detective Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear.
Modack along with Zane Kilian, Ziyaad Poole, Moegamat Toufeek Brown, Riyaat Gesant, Faghmeed Kelly, Mario Pietersen, Jacques Cronje, Petrus Visser, Janick Adonis, Amaal Jantjies, Ashley Tabisher, Yaseen Modack , Adiel Mukadam and Ricardo Morgan went on trial on 29 January this year.
The group was slapped with 124 charges centred on various incidents including the murder of Kinnear, the murder of Nicholaas Heerschap, 74, and the botched hits on top criminal attorney William Booth.
The charges ranged from murder to money laundering as the state exposed the murder plots allegedly weaved by Modack and his co-conspirators.
During the dramatic trial state witnesses dropped several bombshells as they exposed the links between Modack and the Terrible West Siders gang as well as the extraordinary lengths the investigative team went to uncover the truth behind the high profile hits.
The trial has run for a total of 107 days over four court terms and seen about 40 state witnesses take to the stand.
The courtroom has also been the backdrop of fights between the accused as alleged gang members could be seen exchanging bekskote as new evidence came to light.
Chuckles were heard in the courtroom yesterday as Joubert told the court that information indicated that despite Brown being classified as a 12-gunya in the prison numbers gang there were unverified reports that he was in fact not a general but instead paid for his gang tjappies.
Brown later denied ‘buying his gunyas’.
The defence teams told Judge Robert Henney that they intended on bringing 174 applications and the case was postponed to 2 December for the defence case to begin.
monique.duval@inl.co.za