26 Sep 2023

CoA to decide murder trial status

The Court of Appeal (CoA) will on October 30 deliver a ruling on whether the murder trial of Daniel Seitiso should start afresh or be a continuation of trial.

This comes after Justice Abednego Tafa, who was handling the trial, retired while the matter was still being heard, but having made a major pronouncement on a confession statement by the accused person during a trial within a trial.
Justice Tafa had ruled that the confession statement was not admissible in court, having relied on the arguments made by the defence then. However, when the matter was inherited by Justice Terence Rannowane, he made a ruling that the trial be heard “de novo”, a   legal phrase means that the trial should be heard afresh without reference to any legal conclusions or assumptions made by the previous court.

However, defence lawyer, Mr Boingotlo Toteng argued that even though that was the explanation of de novo, the phrase actually had a different legal interpretation, and argued that there were many international cases that could be cited to back his argument on its legal interpretation.

“The legal interpretation of the phrase should not be taken at face value like a lay person would explain it. Legally it allows for some aspects of the matter at hand to be carried forward even when the mater starts afresh,” he argued.
Mr Toteng also disagreed with the Chief Justice’s position that the ruling on the confession statement was provisional, but argued that Justice Tafa’s decision on the matter was final.

“What should happen is that issues that were ruled on and closed should not be revisited, what should be done afresh are only issues that were not concluded, such as some witnesses having given evidence, but no ruling taken on such evidence by the time the matter was halted,” he said.

Mr Toteng explained that the issue of the confession statement was a trial within a trial, hence explaining how the decision on it was finalised before the conclusion of the actual trial.
Seitiso is accused of the murder of his girlfriend in Kang in 2011. He was also allegedly facing another murder charge prior to the one in Kang.

Meanwhile in the same sitting, the Court of Appeal struck off the roll a matter in which Tshepiso Bohule attempted to convince the court to allow him to file his appeal of a rape sentence out of time. The matter was dismissed due to the fact that in his effort, the accused failed to file his grounds of appeal as required, instead only filing his heads of argument.

On enquiry he indicated to the court that he was not aware that his papers were not complete as he did not personally file the application, to which the court stated that since it was his matter, it was also his responsibility to ensure that all relevant documents were filed. END