Alleged gangster evasive in court

An alleged gangster charged with the murder of a Kleinskool man told the Port Elizabeth High Court on Tuesday that he had moved to Missionvale in August 2015 after his life was threatened for a shooting that took place in November that year.

Under cross-examination by state prosecutor advocate Rafiq Ahmed, Fabian Fillis, an alleged member of the Kakmakers gang, said he was forced to move away from his Kleinskool home after he allegedly received a threat from a state witness – in the case currently before court – for the shooting of the witness’s brother.

Fillis claimed the witness told him something bad would happen to him because of his involvement in the shooting.

When it was put to him that the November 2015 shooting – which left the witness’s brother partially paralysed – had happened about four months after the alleged threat, Fillis became evasive, prompting judge Bulelwa Pakati to reprimand him.

“The question is very simple – [Ahmed] wants to know how it is possible [to be threatened] if the [shooting] took place in November 2015, but you were threatened in August 2015,” Pakati said.

Fillis could not explain this and said the brother of the man who was shot should tell the court why he had threatened him.

Pushed further, Fillis admitted he had heard, while in St Albans Prison, that alleged gangster Sascha Ferreira had shot the witness’s brother.

The state alleges Ferreira and Fillis are both members of the Kakmakers, but Fillis denied this.

Ferreira’s case is being heard in the regional court.

Fillis, along with co-accused Vuyolwetu Mankonkwana, 28, is charged with the December 7 2017 murder of Thomas Ernest Hammond.

Hammond was shot twice in the head while walking along a road in Kleinskool.

Both men have pleaded not guilty and the case continues.