Adv Zandile Mshololo has argued that some of the evidence that is said to have been found by the police on the scene where Senzo Meyiwa was gunned down was actually planted and did not exist.

Mshololo spent over an hour of cross-examination showing the court that state witness Sgt Thabo Mosia, who was the first forensic investigator to arrive on the scene, did not follow proper procedure while collecting evidence at singer Kelly Khumalo's home in Vosloorus, on the East Rand.

At the heart of the argument was the two pieces of evidence collected by Mosia – a bullet projectile (front of the bullet) and the bullet jacket (the casing).

Mosia testified that he collected the evidence the first time he arrived on the scene on October 26 2014.

However, he did not record the time at which he collected the evidence.

Mosia told the court that the evidence was entered into the register at 8.30am on October 28 2014.

He was then questioned as to where he stored the exhibits, to which he replied: “I have a safe in my office. Because this incident happened during the weekend and our exhibit clerk was not at work and was to come on Monday, I kept them there till Monday. When the clerk arrived, they would then secure the evidence.”

“You are making it worse,” Mshololo reacted.

“The reason why you did not mention that you kept such crucial evidence in your own safe is because they never existed. You never retrieved them from the crime scene and there is no record as to where they were stored because they were planted on the crime scene.”

Mosia testified that both the projectile and the bullet jacket were found on the kitchen unit behind the glass jar on the crime scene.

He told the court that he only captured the evidence when he returned to the crime scene for the second time on October 27 2014.

Mshololo further questioned why Mosia had failed to spot these pieces of evidence the first time, which were in the kitchen, as he had identified and even marked the bullet hole on the door.

“Is it possible for an expert not to see the exhibit that is two metres from each other?” she asked.

But Mosia used the same defence which he has been using for the past three days, saying his priority when he arrived at the scene was to protect it, take the evidence while waiting for the crime scene management team to come and assist him with the work.

Since the beginning of the week, the defence has been hard at work poking holes on Mosia’s evidence to show that the evidence he found on the scene does not exist and that the scene he testified to have taken control of was already contaminated.

Adv Malesela Teffo told the court on Wednesday that Meyiwa was allegedly shot by his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo and a meeting was held where the occupants of the house hatched a plan to say there was a robbery.

Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi, Mthobisi Prince Mncube, Mthokoziseni Maphisa and Sifisokuhle Nkani Ntuli have been charged with his murder.

The five face charges of premeditated murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of firearms without a licence and possession of ammunition.

The trial continues.