Members of a notorious Terrible Josters gang intentionally tampered with their tattoos to protect their alleged boss, Ernest “Ernie Lastig” Solomon, the Western Cape High Court has heard.
This was revealed by a former gang member who turned State witness to piemp his former friends in the ongoing trial against Ernie’s nephew, Horatio “Voudie” Solomon, and 11 others.
The group is facing more than 70 charges for a string of crimes relating to the murders of their alleged rivals in the Sexy Boys and Junior Mafias gangs.
The State’s star witness stood strong on Monday when he was questioned about his relationship with alleged Belhar Terrible Josters gang boss, Elton Ely.
In his earlier testimony, the State witness, who may not be identified, told the court that Ely was the leader for the gang in Belhar and Horatio was the leader in Delft, and described how he carried out orders allegedly given by Ely.
ON TRIAL: Delft ‘gang boss’ Elton Ely.
Facing the fourth defence lawyer after weeks of intense cross-examination, the witness denied that he lied about Ely being the gang’s leader in Belhar and told the court that the “NWA gang” and the Terrible Josters gang were, in fact, one gang.
He did not clarify what the acronym stands for.
He said the Josters were more dominant and said Ely instructed him to get an NWA tattoo to cover his TJ one, something which Ely has denied.
When the defence lawyer said that this did not make sense because it wouldn’t matter if they were one gang anyway, the witness replied, “everyone knew Ernie was the leader of the Terribles”.
“It made sense to us,” said the witness. “When we started, everyone knew Mr. Solomon was the leader and if they caught you with drugs and they saw Terrible Josters, the police and the newspapers will say it is Ernie’s drugs.”
When questioned about his introduction into the gang more than 14 years ago, the witness admitted that despite being married and living in Wynberg with his wife, he frequently went to Belhar to collect Ely and together they picked up women in Bokmakierie and drove to a train station where they would tik together.
Ely’s lawyer also revealed a list of 12 alleged gang hits which the investigating officer said the State witness would be willing to testify on.
Included in the list are the
murders of alleged underworld figures Cyril Beeka and Yuri “The Russian”
Ulianitski.
MURDERED: Cyril Beeka
But the witness claimed he was not involved in these two high-profile deaths and only knew of the other 10, which included Delft teen, Lorenzo de Kock, 18, who was gunned down outside Roosendal High School in October 2014, just hours before his matric valedictory.