Day two of the AKA murder trial didn’t end with testimony. It ended with the public being cleared out of a Durban courtroom after reports that someone had slipped a cellphone to one of the seven men accused of killing the rapper.
Judge Nomfundo Sipunzi ordered everyone out on Tuesday and adjourned proceedings, describing the problem as a security issue.
East Coast Radio reported that the concern involved an alleged cellphone handoff, although the station said it had not received formal confirmation.
Before the courtroom emptied, Sipunzi met prosecutor Lawrence Gcaba in her chambers. Police and court staff then started moving through the room, and the day was effectively over.
The timing is awkward for a case that has already taken more than three years to get this far. The trial only opened on Monday, when all seven defendants pleaded not guilty to 11 shared charges covering murder, conspiracy, attempted murder and firearm offenses.
Tuesday had already brought one development before the disruption. Sipunzi ruled that defendant Siyanda Myeza will face six additional charges tied to a separate 2022 case, which will be heard in a different trial.
Prosecutors say this was no spontaneous shooting. Police have described a planned operation involving gunmen, men assigned to track AKA’s movements, and someone who arranged the weapons and getaway vehicles.
AKA, born Kiernan Forbes, was 35 when he and chef Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane were shot outside Wish restaurant on Florida Road on February 10, 2023.
The rapper had finished dinner and was saying goodbye to friends on the street when the attack happened.
According to TimesLIVE’s account of the surveillance footage, AKA was embracing a friend seconds before the shooting.
A man in a white sweater and hat walked toward the group, glancing back down the street, then raised a gun and rushed at AKA, firing at close range before running across the road.
Police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said the gunman circled a parked car and came at the rapper from behind. “He did not shoot the friend that was with him, but he shot AKA twice, and he ran away,” Mkhwanazi said.
A second gunman fired toward the group and killed Tibz, according to Mkhwanazi, who has maintained that AKA was the intended target. Investigators say a spotter followed the rapper from the airport to his hotel and then watched him inside the restaurant.
Police also say the original plan was to shoot AKA inside a vehicle. That changed when he lingered outside greeting his friend, leaving him exposed on the pavement.
For the families, the wait has been long. AKA’s parents and Tibz’s father were in court for Monday’s opening, finally seeing the men accused in the case face a judge.
Fans who followed AKA from his early hits to his status as one of South African hip hop’s biggest names have been watching just as closely.
Tuesday’s interruption is a reminder of how much tension surrounds the case, both inside and outside the courtroom.
All seven defendants remain in custody. The trial is set to resume in Court W at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 7, and it’s still unclear what the court will say about how a phone allegedly made its way to the accused.
