Investigating officer Brigadier Bongani Gininda has denied that he offered R3 million to accused two, Bongani Ntanzi, to implicate the "right people" in the murder of football star Senzo Meyiwa. (Anesh Debiky/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
Dr Johannes Steenkamp, who performed an autopsy on Senzo Meyiwa after the footballer was killed in 2014, told the Pretoria high court on Tuesday that although his death was not instantaneous, he could only have survived for “seconds, minutes, but definitely not hours”.
Steenkamp said he examined Meyiwa’s body on 28 October 2014, two days after he was shot in what the state says was a botched robbery in the Vosloorus home of his girlfriend, Kelly Khumalo.
The five people on trial — Mthokozisi Maphisa, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Ntanzi, Mthobisi Ncube and Fisokuhle Ntuli — have pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and the illegal possession of ammunition.
Steenkamp said the shot to Meyiwa’s chest was a contact one, meaning the gun was touching his body when it was fired. He said the bullet entered Meyiwa’s body from the front and took a downward trajectory, causing internal injuries and bleeding before it exited his back.
“It lacerated the heart resulting in a 3cm x 1cm irregular laceration extending from the anterior wall of the right ventricle, partially lacerating the right coronary artery and extending into the right atrium,” Steenkamp said, adding that bleeding surrounded the tearing, bruising the upper lobe of the right lung.
“It perforated the lower lobe of the right lung leaving a 5cm x 3cm irregular perforating, haemorrhagic, lacerated wound.”
Steenkamp said Meyiwa bled heavily internally. His right chest cavity contained free and clotted blood caused by internal bleeding from the heart and the lungs.
“The blood, although it is inside the body, is not inside the blood vessels,” he said.
During cross-examination, defence advocate Sipho Ramosepele asked whether Meyiwa could still have been alive 12 minutes after he was shot.
“After plus-minus 12 minutes of no medical attendance at all on the victim, would he have survived that, would he have suffered?” Ramosepele asked.
Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng noted that Steenkamp had already addressed this earlier.
“The doctor just testified that it’s not possible that he would have been alive for hours, he said seconds and minutes,” he said.
Ramosepele based his question on the evidence previously given by a Khumalo neighbour, Khaya Ncatshe, who told the court that he and other neighbours went on the hunt for the intruders, including searching the park down the road, and arrived back at the Khumalo house about 12 minutes later, to find Meyiwa gasping for air.
Another defence lawyer, Charles Nxumalo, referred Steenkamp to the plan of the Khumalo house and showed him where a previous witness, Zandile Khumalo, had said that after a gunshot went off, she saw Meyiwa move from the kitchen towards the sitting room where he fell between the couches.
Nxumalo asked whether there would have been blood marks if Meyiwa had moved.
“There would have been dripping of blood, I mean this is an open wound, a normal skin wound,” Steenkamp replied.
Steenkamp confirmed that the photographs did not show a blood trail. “ If he was walking and blood was dripping then yes, there should be blood there.”
Nxumalo brought up the theory of the scene having been tampered with before the police arrived.
Mokgoatlheng interjected, saying the blood could have been soaked up by Meyiwa’s clothes.
“The deceased was not naked. Can you exclude the possibility of blood percolating from the wound. [He] had a T-shirt on. When you look at the photos his T-shirt had blood on it and it also percolated to the pants. That is the background I understand,” the judge said.