- The State will begin analysing cellphone data in the trial of the three men accused of murdering Pete Mihalik.
- Cellphone data has already been shown to have helped locate the alleged shooter as he was about to board a bus out of town.
- When the trial resumes on Wednesday, the State is expected to delve into cellphone data as the next piece of the puzzle into who murdered Mihalik.
The trial of the three men accused of assassinating Cape Town lawyer Pete Mihalik was postponed to Wednesday.
It was meant to have continued with a new witness in the Western Cape High Court on Monday, but due to unforeseen circumstances it could not go ahead as planned.
The new witness is expected to analyse cellphone data and could give a glimpse into some of the planning before the assassination, as well as the frantic moments immediately after the shooting in Green Point.
Mihalik was shot dead on 30 October 2018, while taking his two children to school.
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The court has, so far, heard and seen evidence from witnesses, which form a picture of what the State believes happened before and after the clinical assassination of Mihalik.
Sizwe Biyela, Nkosinathi Khumalo and Vuyile Maliti strenuously deny having anything to do with the murder.
The first clue that cellphone evidence may have played a part was in previous testimony by a police officer, Sergeant Isaac Tshabalala, that Khumalo kept getting calls from the same number when he was being questioned at the Sea Point police station not long after the murder.
He was questioned after a traffic official, Boy Makutu, had pulled two cars over for driving through an intersection, without stopping.
Khumalo was taken to the police station because the car he was in allegedly drove off when the fine for not stopping at an intersection was being prepared. He returned on foot to say that he had parked the car near the aquarium at the V&A Waterfront and had walked back.
By then, Maliti had already accepted his fine and driven off.
Feeling that something was off, Makutu took Khumalo in to complete his fine.
In the half-written fine, Khumalo had given Maliti's address as to where he would be staying while in Cape Town.
The two cars Makutu had pulled over turned out to be the same as those spotted in CCTV footage, which had already been gathered from the Mihalik murder.
Police decided to analyse Khumalo's phone - and the State contends that is how they tracked Biyela down to a Shoprite in Langa, where he was buying a one-way bus ticket to KwaZulu-Natal.
Biyela was finally located at a bus rank in Bellville via his cellphone.
With the late Anti-Gang Unit Detective Charl Kinnear and his colleague, Leaticia van der Horst, staking out the rank, Biyela was finally found.
Maliti later presented himself to the police for questioning when he heard they were looking for him. He is a taxi operator-cum-gold and jewellery dealer, who went to sell gold coins after Mihalik was assassinated.