'Violation of my clients' rights', says high-powered advocate representing men allegedly linked to AKA's murder

Four suspected gunmen allegedly linked to the shooting of slain rapper AKA have brought out the "big guns" for their defence. 

Advocate Annelene van den Heever, who counts former Eskom executive and corruption accused Anoj Singh as one of her clients, told TimesLIVE she was fuming after the four men  failed to appear in the Durban magistrate's court on Wednesday.

She said this was a violation of their rights as it exceeded the maximum 48 hours, and also threatened to bring a high court case should they not appear in court on Thursday. 

Van den Heever — who also represented Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir, convicted terrorist siblings the Thulsie twins and corruption-accused pastor Shepherd Bushiri — said she would be writing a letter on Wednesday to police and justice ministry after the men, who were arrested in Cape Town on Sunday and transported to Durban, failed to appear in court. She said she would approach the high court if necessary.

She told TimesLIVE that her clients were arrested on Sunday, and the police never revealed to them why they were being detained. 

She said police had to bring the men to court before the end of 48 hours, which expired on Tuesday.

"Since yesterday, they’ve been unlawfully in custody. They are also charged under a Berea SAPS case number. One of the policemen put the case number into the system to check the status of the docket, but it came back invalid. We don’t know what is going on here. They are being housed at the Durban Central Police Station.

"We have now made a statement to them to say that they must bring them to court, charge them, and we will deal with that. The fact that they are in custody after 48 hours of not going to court is a violation of their rights," said Van den Heever.  

Van den Heever said her clients were transported from Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Durban at 5am. 

She said after numerous attempts to get the police to bring her clients to court, they refused. 

Van den Heever was speaking to TimesLIVE after she had been in court.

"I’ve been up and down trying to find out why they are not here and when they are appearing. We tried with the state prosecutor and even the police, but no one is prepared to give an update. All we want is for them to be brought before the court, and we will deal with that there.

"We have been told that they are not charged yet, which doesn’t make sense. The police leaked information that the guys were arrested for the AKA murder case, but they are not revealing anything to us," she said. 

She said the four men were despondent and confused about what was happening. 

Van den Heever said she has also advised her clients to open a criminal case against the police.

"As it stands, I might even challenge the lawfulness of the arrest based on whether they had reasonable suspicion to arrest them," she said. 

It was widely reported that the men were arrested at a shopping centre in Cape Town on Sunday in connection with the February 10 shootings outside a popular restaurant in Florida Road, Durban. 

The men were said to be transported to Durban for a court appearance.

However, KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Col Robert Netshiunda said the “unconfirmed” reports about the arrest of an ever-changing number of suspects have been doing the rounds and are misleading the public. 

He said though police understood the murders attracted media attention, the reports had the potential to “jeopardise ongoing investigations”. 

“The reports had the potential to put the lives of the people purported to have been arrested at risk, he said. The lives of people portrayed as police officers in photographs and videos, which have been doing the rounds on certain websites and social media platforms, were also endangered."

Both the NPA and police have been approached for comment. 

This is a developing story. 

TimesLIVE

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