The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) officer investigating the murder of Mthokozisi Ntumba has been accused of trying to influence the outcome of the postmortem after she visited the pathologist on the day he examined the deceased’s body.

Ipid's Judy Thwala told the high court in Johannesburg that she was present when the pathologist conducted the postmortem at the Hillbrow mortuary on March 12.

This was two days after Ntumba was gunned down during a student protest over historic debt and non-registration in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

Thwala said also present on that day was a ballistic expert, image analyst and trainee doctors who were there to observe.

She said she normally attends the postmortem to brief doctors about the case. But Emmanuel Netshipise, for accused No 2 Cidraas Motseothatha, 43, rejected her reasoning.

“Your presence there affected the independence and integrity of the postmortem report…I put it to you were there telling the pathologist that this is a gun[shot] wound. Your presence there was to influence the outcome of the process,” said Netshipise.

But Thwala disagreed, informing the court that officers who fetched the body had already filled an SAP 180 form which identified that Ntumba’s body had bullet wounds.

She added that the image analyst was there to further capture images that he might have missed at the crime scene because the deceased was wearing clothes.

Officers Tshepiso Kekana, 27, Motseothatha, Madimetja Legodi, 37, and Victor Mohammed, 51, are facing charges of murder and three counts of attempted murder.

Ntumba was shot and killed shortly after he had visited his doctor for a consultation.

Thwala earlier testified that accused 1 to 3 (Kekana, Motseothatha and Legodi) did not capture the incident on their pocket books which are used to record everything that happened while responding to a crime.

Only accused number 4, Mohammed, recorded the shooting incidents.

She further revealed that even in the incident report information system which she got in an email, there was no mention of Ntumba’s shooting.

On Monday, Thwala testified that the four officers did not report the incident in the police occurrence book.

She said an entry was then put three days later on March 12 about the incident, but there was no specification of what had happened.​