Sizwe Biyela, Nkosinathi Khumalo and Vuyile Maliti at the Cape Town Magistrate Court. (Jaco Marais, Netwerk24, archive)
- The man who allegedly pulled the trigger in the murder of attorney Pete Mihalik hid an alibi for nearly five years.
- He said Wednesday that he didn’t know he could use an alibi to prove he was innocent until he went to court.
- He says that he and three other men were negotiating the sale of gold coins at the time of the murder and that he had nothing to do with it.
The man who allegedly murdered Cape Town lawyer Pete Mihalik says he always had an alibi to prove he wasn’t the shooter, but didn’t know he could let this person vouch for him.
During his trial at the Western Cape High Court, he said that it was only when he was on trial that he realized this could have released him from the case from the start and given him back his freedom.
Sizwe Biyela testified during the State’s cross-examination on Wednesday that on October 30, 2018, the morning of Mihalik’s murder, he and his co-defendants Nkosinathi Khumalo and Vuyile Maliti were sitting in a VW Polo with a fourth man and were negotiating the Sale of Kruger Rands.
He said his girlfriend was waiting for them in a nearby garage to finish their deal.
From KwaZulu-Natal’s Umlazi, he only remembers that it was near the garage where she was waiting, and a Spar.
READ | Mihalik murder trial: Cell phone data shows frantic phone calls between defendants
After negotiations, he and his girlfriend took a metered taxi to Langa to get their hair done.
The court has already heard that his phone was traced to Langa Shoprite and that he himself bought a bus ticket back to Durban.
After Mihalik’s murder, police combed the area for witness statements about possible vehicle sightings and examined security cameras along the highway.
Meanwhile, the three of them ended up being pulled over by a traffic officer for skipping a stop street. The car Khumalo was in drove away, but he returned to say the driver had just fled the scene.
So, because the traffic officer was only halfway through the ticket, he took him to the Sea Point Police Station to finish writing the ticket and possibly even find the car that sped away.
READ | From warehouse worker to Kruger rand dealer: Suspected Mihalik shooter testifies
Before he knew it, Khumalo was quickly connected to the hit, based on CCTV footage of the vehicles and the registration numbers of the cars on the scene and the cars stopped at the traffic stop.
All three deny having anything to do with the murder and attempted murder of Mihalik’s young children.
At the Sea Point police station, Khumalo’s phone rang incessantly and a police officer pulled it out of his shirt, whereupon the police made their second breakthrough. They were able to trace the urgent caller, who was Biyela, and obtained a photo of him.
Biyela was arrested at the Bellville bus station as he was about to take the bus back to Durban.
However, he says that when he was arrested, the police took his cell phone and he had no way of contacting his girlfriend or his family. He didn’t know his cell phone number by heart either.
He was pressed extensively on Wednesday to explain why he never told anyone he had an alibi, his girlfriend, who could guarantee he was not in on Mihalik’s murder.
Ultimately, Maliti was contacted through the address he provided when the traffic officer ticketed him. He was not found at that address, his parents’ house, but he reported to the police when he heard they were looking for him for questioning.
Biyela testified that he had arrived in Cape Town on an Intercape bus on October 28 and spent the night with his girlfriend, Akhona Matiwane, in a white-painted house with concrete walls near the Litha Park police station in Khayelitsha. . Biyela had left it there after his arrival. He wasn’t sure he could find the house again.
He and his girlfriend had a long-distance relationship for about a year, but he didn’t know where she worked.
He has insisted that he was in Cape Town only to carry out a Kruger Rand transaction.
He and his cousin, Khumalo, operated the Durban arm of the Kruger Rand trading business, and sold coins to Maliti in Cape Town, he testified.
Biyela said she didn’t even know who Mihalik was.
Prosecutor Greg Wolmarans insisted that if that were the case, his reason for hiding a crucial alibi was meaningless.
“You know she’s important to show how innocent you guys are!” Wolmarans exclaimed.
Biyela replied, “It was my first time being arrested, my lady, so I didn’t know that you would eventually be needed to come and testify.”
The trial continues.
