Cape Town - The State has officially closed its case in the mammoth underworld trial against Nafiz Modack and his co-accused, after a staggering 107 days.
In the Western Cape High Court on Thursday, testimony of the last State witness - Lieutenant-Colonel Pieter Joubert of the National Task Team, established to investigate the murder of slain Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) detective Charl Kinnear, was finalised.
Modack, along with Zane Kilian, Ziyaad Poole, Moegamat Toufeek “Bubbles” Brown, Riyaat Gesant, Faghmeed Kelly, Mario Pietersen, Jacques Cronje, Petrus Visser, Janick Adonis, Amaal Jantjies, Ashley Tabisher, Yaseen Modack, Adiel Mukadam and Ricardo Morgan went on trial on January 29 this year.
The group was slapped with 124 charges centred on various incidents including the murder of Kinnear, the murder of Nicholaas Heerschap, and the botched hits on top criminal attorney, William Booth.
The charges ranged from murder to money laundering as the State exposed the web weaved allegedly by Modack and his co-conspirators behind the various murder plots.
During the dramatic trial, State witnesses dropped several bombshells as they unearthed the links between Modack and the Terrible West Siders gang as well as the extraordinary lengths the investigative team took to uncover the truth behind the high-profile hits.
The trial has run for a total of 107 days over four court terms and seen about 40 State witnesses take to the stand.
The courtroom has also been the backdrop of fights between the accused as alleged gang members could be seen exchanging fists as new evidence came to light.
Chuckles were heard in the courtroom on Thursday as Joubert told the court information indicated that despite Brown being classified as a 12-gunya (fighting general) in the prison numbers gang, there were unverified reports that he was in fact not a general but instead paid for his gang tattoos.
Brown later denied “buying his gunyas”.
On Thursday, the defence teams told Judge Robert Henney they intended to bring 174 discharge applications and the case was postponed to December 2 for the defence case to begin.