Shoba's defence pokes holes in police expert's evidence at Pule's murder trial
The legal team of the alleged mastermind in Tshegofatso Pule’s murder have used their cross-examination to try and poke holes in the evidence given by the SA Police Service investigative team and a police expert.
Police expert W/O Andries van Tonder, a communication analyst and forensic cellphone examiner, testified that while the alleged mastermind, Ntuthuko Shoba, denied knowing the unregistered number he is alleged to have used to repeatedly call Muzikayise Malephane hours before the killing of Pule, the number had been identified by records to be with his other registered phone on the day.
Shoba’s lawyer Adv Norman Makhubela had on Tuesday asked for a day’s adjournment as he wanted to consult and prepare to grill Van Tonder on his evidence.
Makhubela questioned Van Tonder during cross-examination on the extent of his expertise before questioning the accuracy of the signal of cellphone towers in determining the exact location of handsets.
“You are able based on your data to show the area where the handset is but not the exact location and that you cannot pinpoint where the particular person is or the handset was being used, correct?” he asked.
Van Tonder conceded that he could not determine the location nor the exact distance of the handsets from the cellphone towers.
While Pule's cousin Palesa Senokoane testified in court that on June 4, Pule called her using WhatsApp around 8pm, no records reflected the call in Van Tonder's volume of evidence.
Van Tonder had testified that records had shown Pule's phone to have been last active around 6.44pm.
He initially disputed that the call had taken place as he insisted that it had to be reflected on the records, but Makhubela pointed out that smartphones could also “operate within the sphere of Wi-Fi where they would not be dependent on their default networks for connecting”.
“I am instructed, and that is also the evidence before court that between the times that are reflected, the deceased had been in communication with her cousin,” Makhubela said.
Van Tonder said a follow-up on the records of the Wi-Fi to which Pule connected would likely reveal the information, as it was not part of the data he had been asked to analyse.
Next on the stand was Sgt Mpe Teme, who is among the investigating officers who probed the case and arrested Shoba after evidence pointed to him as having allegedly had a hand in Pule’s killing.
Teme told the court that when he took Shoba’s phone when the investigation started, he found that he had deleted his communication with Pule, who was eight months pregnant with Shoba's child at the time of her killing, as it could not be found in both SMS and WhatsApp messages.
While Makhubela said he was instructed by Shoba that he had saved Pule by another name which he disclosed to the court, Teme disputed this, and said, instead, he had discovered that Shoba had another phone when he came to arrest him, which contained some of the messages between him and Pule.
The trial continues.