Witness D murder case postponed as phone mapping remains incomplete

The pre-trial hearing in the murder case linked to Marius van der Merwe known as “Witness D” was postponed after investigators said phone downloads and mapping remained outstanding. The accused, former SAPS Special Task Force member Matipandile Sotheni, appeared at the Brakpan Magistrate’s Court on Thursday for the hearing after being denied bail last month.

Who is involved and what happened

Sotheni faces 16 charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, three counts of attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, ammunition-related offences and theft. The charges relate to the shooting death of Marius van der Merwe, who was shot at his home in Brakpan on 5 December 2025. His wife and two children survived the shooting.

Why the matter was delayed

The defence told the court on Thursday that the investigation into Sotheni’s phones and the associated mapping had not been completed, which prevented the transfer of the case to the High Court for trial.

“The state is of the intention for the docket to be available to the defence so that we can deal with these issues already at the next appearance,”

The defence said it expected the investigation to be finalised by the next appearance and that the defence would be in possession of the docket. Defence counsel asked for transfer authorisation and an indictment so the case could be moved to the High Court as soon as possible.

“It needs to be clear on record that when we postponed the case previously, it was not really for mapping as such, but it was downloads followed by mapping. However, the mapping will be done as the downloads took longer than we had anticipated.”

The State told the court that the delay in completing mapping was not deliberate.

“It depends on the duration of the downloading. So the fact that the downloading was done and it took a while is not really something that could actually be said that the State delayed or something,”

the State argued.

Next steps

The matter was postponed to 9 September 2026 to allow for the completion of mapping and the tracking of Sotheni’s cell phones.