All members of the media were chased out of the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial on Wednesday after the face of state witness Tumelo Madlala was shown during a live broadcast.
Judge Tshifiwa Maumela, who is presiding over the Meyiwa trial instructed all the members of the media to leave the court room after it emerged that the witness’s face was shown by one of the news channels.
Maumela had ruled that Madlala’s face should not be revealed during his time on the witness stand in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
However, on Wednesday one of the TV channels disobeyed the ruling.
State prosecutor, advocate George Baloyi notified Maumela about Madlala’s face being shown on TV.
“We spoke to the representative of the consent media houses, they say there’s a camera person who feed to different media houses, so it appears the SABC camera person (is the one) who did this my lord,” said Baloyi.
Maumela refused to let the proceedings continue while the person responsible for broadcasting Madlala’s face was still present.
“That person, whatever the effect and the extent of the footage, that person should leave this courtroom now. If we don’t know who it is, all media are going out now.
Maumela suggested that media houses should “sort it out through the night” and return on Thursday to reveal who was responsible for showing Madlala’s face.
“We are not to sacrifice time for trial because of people who want to go sensationalise at the expense of the lives of other people. We can’t do that.”
The barring of the media on Wednesday comes after three media houses had to apologise in September in the wake of them chasing Madlala in the court building.
The court heard how Madlala was unsettled after he was chased by journalists.
The SABC, ENCA and Newzroom Afrika were kicked out of court before being forced to apologise “for their reprehensible behaviour”.
Following this incident Judge Maumela barred the media from taking pictures on Madlala.
Source: News24, IOL, The Citizen, image from Twitter: @kelebz007