Anti-Gang Unit commander Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear was pinged more that 100 times in a single day in the weeks leading up to his assassination in September 2020, the Western Cape High Court heard on Tuesday.
And top criminal lawyer William Booth was pinged over 300 times in the months leading up to the botched hit at his Higgovale home in April 2020.
After weeks of delays in introducing the ping evidence by an elite Hawks team who investigated alleged underworld kingpin, Nafiz Modack, the officers finally took the stand to show in staggering statistics how Kinnear, Booth and others were stalked.
In earlier testimonies, a former skollie and self-professed hitman told the court how he was sent to kill Booth at various locations, allegedly provided to him by Modack’s co-accused, Ziyaad Poole.
The witness who was only identified as Mr A said he had tried on many occasions to kill Booth but failed, and once even fell asleep on the job.
According to the state’s case, Booth’s phone was allegedly pinged by Modack’s co accused, Zane Kilian and following expert testimony by former cop Bradley Goldblatt, the Hawks team proceeded to show the digital data to the court on Tuesday.
Goldblatt told the court that he knew the use of the LAD system to ping phones was illegal. He said he warned the Hawks that Kinnear’s life was in danger.
In his testimony on Tuesday, Captain Edward du Plessis told the court that Booth was pinged 344 times, of which 235 pings were successful.
He explained the pings started on 6 March 2020 with just one ping, but just three days later Booth had been pinged up to 14 times in one day.
Du Plessis shocked the court when he revealed that Booth was pinged as early as 2am in the morning and late at night to ascertain his location.
Questioned by prosecutor Advocate Greg Wolmarans, Du Plessis highlighted that on 14 March 2020, Booth was pinged 49 times in one day, and sometimes in excess of one ping every minute. After the botched hit on 9 April, the pings decreased to less than once a day.
According to a snapshot of the pings done on Kinnear’s phone, it was found that in the month leading up to his murder, he was pinged up to 118 times in just one day on 18 September.
On the day he was murdered, the cop was pinged 35 times. Wolmarans highlighted that after Kinnear was shot outside his Bishop Lavis home, his number was never pinged again.
The trial continues.