Attorneys for lion murder accused Mark Scott-Crossley may have to go into the witness box to explain whether they acted for his co-accused knowing there was a conflict of interest.
Allegations against the attorneys, made earlier in the trial, also remain unchallenged, Judge George Maluleke said in the Phalaborwa High Court on Thursday.
Scott-Crossley (37), Richard ”Doctor” Mathebula (41) and Simon Mathebula (43) are accused of murdering Nelson Chisale (41) on January 31 last year. Chisale was fed to lions in Hoedspruit after a vicious assault.
In his testimony, their former co-accused Robert Mnisi, who has since turned state witness, accused Scott-Crossley’s lawyers of telling him he had erred in coming clean about the murder in his statement to the police. They told him he had done the wrong thing and should have waited for them to arrive.
On another occasion — following Richard Mathebula’s assault by prisoners in the cells after they asked what he was arrested for — the same lawyers returned, photographed the injuries on his back and told him not to say he was assaulted by fellow inmates, but that he had been assaulted by the police, Mnisi testified.
Scott-Crossley paid for lawyers for himself and his co-accused after their arrest and during their initial bail application.
However, the Mathebulas appointed their own counsel when a conflict of interest emerged. The Mathebulas — who are not related to each other — protest their innocence and claim they acted on Scott-Crossley’s instructions.
Though Scott-Crossley contends this came to light only at the time of a second bail application in October, the state maintains that he and his counsel were aware of the situation as early as March.
The state presented to the court notes taken by a National Prosecuting Authority official of a telephone conversation a month before the second bail application regarding the need to appoint pro deo counsel for the Mathebulas.
It contends Scott-Crossley had been bargaining on one of his co-accused accepting the offer — that Mnisi alleged he made — of R10 000 to plead guilty to the murder and support for the person’s family until his release from jail. Scott-Crossley has denied making the offer.
He is ”most reluctant” to subject members of the legal profession to testify and be cross-examined, but evidence before the court points towards this ”unfortunate” case, Maluleke said.
Scott-Crossley’s counsel, Johann Engelbrecht, SC, responded that he will consider the position, discuss it with the attorneys — Charl van Tonder and Joost Huystek — and advise them what they should do.
Maluleke also called the legal team to task over wasting more than a week of the court’s time on evidence about how Chisale was identified by misrepresenting the basis for Scott-Crossley’s defence as pertaining to the identification of the human remains found in the lions’ den.
Maluleke is hearing the case with assessors Kate Choshi and Elphus Seemela. — Sapa