Inside the Disputed Statement: How a Contested Affidavit, Alleged Fabrication, and Judicial Decisions Are Shaping a High-StakesTrial
At the center of this trial lies a single document—a disputed statement that the defense insists was never authored, approved, or understood by the man to whom it is attributed.

To understand the gravity of what is unfolding in court, it is essential to step back and reconstruct how this statement came into existence, why it matters so deeply to the prosecution, and why its handling has raised serious concerns about fairness, credibility, and judicial conduct.

From the defense perspective, the starting point is clear: Makos had nothing to do with creating the statement that now threatens to implicate multiple accused persons.

According to testimony, the statement was produced entirely by Gininda, not by Makos himself.

What the court is now being asked to accept as Makos’s sworn account is, in the defense’s view, a document authored by police, later retrofitted with a commissioning process, and ultimately weaponized after the prosecution failed to secure Makos as a state witness.

How the Statement Came Into Existence
The factual sequence, as laid out in court, begins with Makos’s arrest by Sergeant Mena at Beggars.

From there, Makos was transported to Kempton Park, where he encountered Gininda and several other officers inside a boardroom.

This meeting, not a police station interview room, is where the document allegedly began to take shape.

As Makos testified, while discussions were taking place, Gininda was writing.

Crucially, Makos stated that he had no idea what Gininda was writing, no document was read back to him, and no explanation was provided as to the purpose or content of what was being recorded.

In other words, whatever Gininda was drafting, it was not dictated by Makos, reviewed by Makos, or confirmed by Makos at that time.

This point is fundamental.

The defense argues that authorship and awareness are inseparable.

A statement cannot genuinely belong to a witness who neither dictated its contents nor understood what was being written.

The Yeoville Mystery: Commissioning After the Fact
The controversy deepens when the form of the document is examined.

The statement is presented as an affidavit—supposedly a sworn account—but it was commissioned not in Kempton Park, where the interaction occurred, but in Yeoville.

Geographically, this raises immediate red flags.

Kempton Park lies on the eastern side of Johannesburg, while Yeoville is much closer to the city center.

The distance is not vast, but it is significant enough to demand an explanation.

Why would a statement allegedly taken in Kempton Park be commissioned elsewhere? Why would Makos know nothing about this commissioning process?

According to the defense, the answer is simple and deeply troubling: the statement was drafted first, and only later did its authors realize it needed to be commissioned.

At that point, they allegedly sought the most convenient police station—Yeoville—to formalize a document that had already been created.

This, the defense says, is what “cooking” evidence looks like.

The content is manufactured, the logistics are patched together later, and inconsistencies inevitably emerge.

The Original Purpose: Turning Makos Into a State Witness
The defense maintains that the statement had a clear and strategic objective from the outset: to transform Makos into a prosecution witness, potentially even a Section 204 witness, in exchange for cooperation.

Within the statement, Makos is portrayed as implicating himself and, more importantly, implicating the accused persons in the killing of Senzo.

This was the prosecution’s goal—to secure insider testimony that would strengthen their case.

But that plan collapsed.

Makos was never convinced.

When the police failed to secure his cooperation, the document was taken to Director of Public Prosecutions offices in Pretoria.

It was there, according to Makos, that he first actually saw the statement bearing his name.

The Prosecutor’s Attempt—and Failure—to Salvage the Statement
Once the matter reached the prosecutor, identified in court as Balooi, a second attempt was made to persuade Makos to align himself with the statement and testify for the state.

That effort also failed.

Makos made it clear that he would have nothing to do with the document.

He described it as riddled with fabrications and stated that he could not associate himself with content that was untrue.

Serious differences arose during this meeting, and Makos refused outright to become a state witness.

At that point, the prosecution made a strategic retreat.

Makos was removed from the witness list.

The statement, once central to the prosecution’s ambitions, became an orphaned piece of evidence—no longer backed by a cooperative witness.

A Statement That Changed Hands
After the prosecution abandoned its attempt to use Makos, the statement effectively slipped out of their control.

It was the defense that ultimately called Makos to testify, giving him the opportunity to explain, under oath, how the document came into existence and why he repudiates it entirely.

This development reportedly came as a shock to the prosecution, just as they had been shocked by the earlier appearance of another unexpected witness.

Once again, a witness they believed neutralized re-emerged, not to support the state’s case, but to expose what the defense characterizes as investigative misconduct.

Forced to Confront a Document He Rejects
The controversy intensified when the court ruled that the defense had the right to cross-examine Makos on the disputed statement, despite it never having been formally proven as admissible.

This placed Makos in an extraordinary position: he was confronted, line by line, with a document he insists was not his.

Under cross-examination by Dr.Sibanda, Makos acknowledged only one thing: his personal particulars in the statement were accurate, because those details had been given to Gininda.

Beyond that, he categorically distanced himself from every substantive allegation contained in the document.

He confirmed nothing about the narrative implicating the accused in the killing of Senzo.

He rejected the content in its entirety, maintaining that it was authored by Gininda and not by him.

For the defense, this testimony is devastating to the prosecution’s narrative.

It transforms the statement from supposed insider evidence into a potential exhibit of fabrication.

Judicial Decisions Under the Microscope
The defense’s frustration is not limited to the prosecution.

Serious concern has been expressed about the role of Judge Rata in handling this aspect of the trial.

Defense counsel argue that the court denied them a full opportunity to argue the admissibility of the statement before it was put to Makos in cross-examination.

When counsel attempted to address the issue, the judge reportedly cut the discussion short, stating, in effect, that the position was already settled.

From the defense perspective, this created an unfair situation: a witness was forced to respond to a document that had not yet been properly tested or admitted into evidence.

The concern is that the court may already have formed a view about the statement’s authenticity.

A Pattern of Alleged Fabrication
The defense situates this controversy within a broader pattern.

They point to previous incidents involving alleged forged affidavits, including testimony from Absalom Zungu and references to docket 636.

In each instance, the defense claims, documents were created or altered to falsely implicate individuals in crimes they had nothing to do with.

Seen in this light, the Makos statement is not an isolated irregularity, but part of what the defense describes as a systematic attempt to manufacture evidence.

Why This Matters Beyond One Case

This is not merely a dispute about one affidavit.

It raises fundamental questions about:
Police integrity and investigative practices
Prosecutorial ethics when witnesses refuse to cooperate
Judicial neutrality in managing contested evidence
If courts accept statements repudiated by their alleged authors, the consequences for criminal justice are profound.

The risk is not only wrongful convictions, but the erosion of public trust in the legal system itself.

Makos’s testimony, according to the defense, has stripped the statement of credibility.

Whether the court ultimately agrees remains to be seen.

But what is clear is that this document—once meant to secure convictions—has now become a focal point for allegations of misconduct.

The Trial’s Defining Fault Line
As the trial continues, the fate of the disputed statement may prove decisive.

If excluded, it weakens the prosecution’s case significantly.

If admitted, it will likely form the backbone of their narrative—despite the witness’s categorical rejection.

Either way, the manner in which the court resolves this issue will echo far beyond the immediate proceedings.

It will signal how South African courts balance efficiency against fairness, authority against accountability, and procedure against justice.