Lawyers representing the accused in the Senzo Meyiwa trial have accused the state witness, Sgt Thabo Mosia, of tempering with the evidence that he collected at the scene of the crime.

Mosia testified that after collecting the evidence at the crime scene on October 27 2014, he only registered it the next day despite starting work in the early hours of the morning.

He told the court that after collecting the evidence from the crime scene he kept it in his safe and only put it in the exhibit register the next day at 8.30am.

The evidence included the bullet projectile which Adv Zandile Mshololo, for accused number five, has told the court was used to link the men accused of killing Meyiwa to the crime.

Mshololo asked why Mosia had to keep the exhibits in his office and only register them the next day.

Mosia told the court that he had spent a long time at the scene so he was exhausted. “You were not tired, you were tempering with the exhibits, that is why you delayed,” she said.

The defence has been poking holes on Mosia’s evidence, arguing that by the time he arrived at the crime scene 20 minutes after midnight, the scene had already been compromised. Lawyers for the accused have argued that evidence was wiped away from the scene while other pieces of evidence were introduced which had not been there.

They have also argued that Mosia did not investigate all the evidence that he found at the scene to better understand what had happened.

Mshololo even went further to question Mosia's experience in the field of forensic investigation at the time of Meyiwa’s killing.

Mosia told the court that he obtained a B-Tech degree in forensic investigation from Unisa in 2019. However, he did not enroll for a diploma as the institution recognised some of the short courses he had done before doing the degree.

He told the court that he also did internal courses provided within SA Police Service which made him recognised as a criminalist expert in 2013.

Msholo argued that at the time of the crime, Mosia only had just a year after being recognised as a criminalist expert by SAPS.

On October 26 2014, Meyiwa was killed at his then girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s home in Vosloorus, on the East Rand, in an alleged robbery that shocked the nation.

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.