AKA murder trial
Nomonde Zondi|Published
A firearm recovered from murder accused Siyanda Eddie Myeza at the time of his arrest fired the cartridges found at the spot where rapper Kiernan ‘AKA’ Forbes and his friend Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane were shot dead, a ballistics expert told the Durban High Court in on Monday.
Warrant Officer Ruwain Kader, who works in the ballistics section of the Forensic Science Laboratory, said his comparison of exhibits from the Florida Road murder scene showed that two of the six cartridges recovered there came from the pistol found on Myeza when he was arrested by the Tactical Response Team in Umlazi, roughly two months after the killings.
Bullet fragments removed from AKA's body were also matched to the same weapon, Kader told the court. Forbes and Motsoane were gunned down outside Wish Restaurant on Florida Road on the evening of February 10, 2023.
Myeza is standing trial for the double murder with Lindokuhle Thabani Mkhwanazi, Lindani Zenzele Ndimande, Lindokuhle Lindo Ndimande, Mziwethemba Harvey Gwabeni and brothers Siyabonga and Melusi Ndimande.
Kader said he examined two groups of cartridge cases from Florida Road, one containing four and the other two. Only the pair matched the gun seized from Myeza.
He was careful to note that a bullet recovered from Motsoane's body did not come from that pistol.
Myeza separately faces six counts stemming from a shooting on Jan Smuts Highway in Mayville on 6 May 2022, in which he is alleged to have conspired to kill, shot dead two men, attempted to kill two more and stolen a white Toyota Etios.
Those counts were joined to the 11 charges in the AKA and Tibz indictment on the basis that the evidence overlapped, but have since been separated.
Early in the trial, prosecutors signalled they would trace the origin of the murder weapon through Myeza's arrest. Kader's task was to test-fire the pistol found on him and compare the resulting cartridge cases against the 32 recovered from the Mayville scene as well as those from outside Wish Restaurant.
He told the court that cartridge cases from the Mayville shooting matched some of those found at the Florida Road scene.
“Four guns were used in the Mayville incident,” Kader said.
“Two were identified under that case number and two were unknown. Cartridge cases from one of the unknown guns were linked to the Berea case, and those are the set of four.”
The trial continues.
nomonde.zondi@iol.co.za