The accused, Zane Killian, is one of 15 co-accused standing trial on 124 charges including racketeering, money-laundering, gang-related offences under POCA, unlawful interception of electronic communications, corruption, murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, intimidation, and firearm/explosive offences. The State alleges that the first accused, Nafiz Modack, headed a criminal enterprise. Killian faces 43 charges, including the premeditated murder of Lt-Col Charl Kinnear of the Anti-Gang Unit and attempted murder of attorney William Booth. Kinnear was assassinated on 18 September 2020 by a lone gunman as he pulled into his driveway. Killian, operating as a debt collector and private investigator, was engaged by Modack to electronically track ("ping") Kinnear's cellphone using a location-based tracking platform run by an ex-policeman, Goldblatt. On the day of the murder, Killian pinged Kinnear 35 times, starting at 02:32, with increasing frequency to every 3 minutes in the half-hour before the shooting, then one final ping 30 minutes after. He also performed time-distance calculations on Kinnear and Booth, obtained consumer trace reports and photographic images from Maris IT, and forwarded these to Modack. Killian similarly pinged Booth some 650 times over 6 months, including on the day Booth was shot at. Killian initially gave a false version to police (claiming a fictitious "Mohammed" hired him to track an unfaithful wife) before admitting Modack was behind it. He attempted to delete data from his cellphones and asked Goldblatt to delete his profile. Witnesses and investigating officers received threats. His first bail application in the regional court was refused; an appeal was dismissed by Binns-Ward J. This is his second attempt at bail, heard in the High Court during trial.
The application for the accused to be released on bail is dismissed.
For an accused charged with a Schedule 6 offence, s 60(11)(a) of the CPA requires proof on a balance of probabilities of exceptional circumstances permitting release in the interests of justice. Personal circumstances that are commonplace do not constitute exceptional circumstances. Where the evidence points to knowing involvement in premeditated murder and attempted murder, the accused has previously attempted to destroy material evidence, state witnesses and investigators have been threatened, the accused has admitted underworld connections and unexplained foreign travel and access to illicit funds, the likelihood of a lengthy sentence, and the trial is near conclusion, it is not in the interests of justice to grant bail.
The court noted that the role of the accused in the murder of Kinnear and the attempted murder of Booth had been 'integral', as the tracking information supplied made it possible for hitmen to be apprised with a high degree of certainty of the victims' arrival or presence at predetermined locations. The court also observed that performing time-distance calculations on Booth to his home made sense 'in the context of facilitating the carrying out of a hit'.
This judgment reaffirms the high threshold for bail in Schedule 6 offences under South African law, particularly in the context of organised crime, assassination of police officers, and electronic tracking used to facilitate murder. It illustrates that even prolonged pre-trial detention (4 years) does not automatically constitute exceptional circumstances where the State's case is strong, the accused has been dishonest and destructive of evidence, and the trial is nearing completion. It also demonstrates the court's approach to evaluating credibility and the weight of circumstantial evidence in bail proceedings.