Counsel for three alleged rhino poachers on Monday opted not to cross-examine a state witness who linked a saw seized in a 2016 rhino poaching incident to a yellow paint chip collected from a rhino poaching scene some years back.
The state is seeking to create an airtight case by tying together a complex web of circumstantial evidence in its efforts to convict Jabulani Ndlovu, 40, Forget Ndlovu, 37, and Sikhumbuzo Ndlovu, 38, of 50 charges relating to the poaching of 13 rhino throughout the Eastern Cape over the past five years.
The men are not related.
The state alleges the three men were caught red-handed in a raid on a holiday chalet in Makhanda in 2016, with a 10.27kg freshly harvested rhino horn valued at R1m, a bloody saw, .22 dart gun and tranquilliser darts, M99 tranquilliser, cellphones and sim cards.
The raid took place within hours of the poaching of a magnificent white rhino from nearby Bucklands Game Reserve.
They are charged in relation to the Bucklands incident as well as the killing of two rhino at a game farm in Jansenville, four rhino in the Graaff-Reinet area, five from the Cradock area, and one from the Great Fish River.
Witness SAPS forensics expert Col Gertruida van Huyssteen said late in 2018 that forensic tests showed the paint from the flake of yellow paint collected in 2015 at the Cradock scene was chemically indistinguishable from that of the yellow paint on the saw seized in the Makhanda incident.
She also said the paint flake collected was a physical match to a chip on the saw.
In a surprise move Advocate Terry Price, SC, on Monday indicated they would not cross-examine Van Huyssteen on this evidence as it was a matter best left to argument.
The trial resumes on Tuesday morning...