- The second accused in the Pete Mihalik murder trial said his first Legal Aid lawyer did not convey his instructions to court.
- If she had, he would have been able to tell the court the car he was driving was not the one identified by police from CCTV footage.
- The only person who can vouch for him on this unfortunately died during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The man accused of being the getaway driver in the hit on lawyer Pete Mihalik blamed his Legal Aid lawyer for not bringing a crucial alibi to the court's attention when he was first arrested.
"The lawyer I had at the court, she did not want to listen to me. She even took her own decisions," said Nkosinathi Khumalo on Wednesday.
Khumalo was being cross-examined for a third day in the murder trial running in the Western Cape High Court.
He said if he had been able to raise an important point about the car he was driving on the fateful day of 30 October 2018, things might have been different.
Khumalo was linked to the murder at 07:39 due to a traffic violation pullover afterwards.
However, he denied he was driving a silver Renault Clio, which happens to match the description of one of the vehicles witnesses noted as they rushed out to find out what was going on in their street during the shooting.
This vehicle was then pinpointed on CCTV collected from around the scene in Green Point.
Khumalo said he was driving a reddish Renault Clio that day, on loan from a friend, Sihle Qwabe from Khayelitsha, and not the grey one pulled over at the traffic stop.
He said Qwabe could have vouched for him on this important point.
Prosecutor Greg Wolmarans spent much of Wednesday's court session going through the minutiae of Khumalo's arrest and wanted to know why he did not point out the discrepancy in the description of his vehicle sooner.
This could have gone some way to exonerating him.
Khumalo said he did not have Qwabe's phone number, because the cellphone the number was stored on, was in his car when it was stolen under the nose of the traffic officer who was writing his fine for not stopping at a stop street.
Mihalik was shot dead in his car when he was about to drop his children off at school in Green Point that morning.
Khumalo, Sizwe Biyela and Vuyile Maliti were charged with murder, attempted murder and the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.
All three pleaded not guilty, with Biyela and Khumalo so far testifying they were in Cape Town from KwaZulu-Natal, not as the feared hitmen the State alleges they are, but to do a lucrative Kruger Rand deal with Maliti.
Biyela also said he had an alibi for where he was at the time of the murder - his girlfriend.
However, he cannot remember her phone number and only knows directions to her house, but not her address.
In the meantime, Khumalo moved on to another Legal Aid lawyer, but not long after the trial started, he fired that lawyer, and has another now, also paid for by the State.
The trial continues on Thursday.