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CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – OCTOBER 27: Suspect Zane Kilian leaves the Cape Town Magistrates Court on October 27, 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa. Zane Kilian, who is charged in the Charl Kinnear murder case, is reportedly facing additional charges including pinging the attorney, William Booth’s phone, and also submitting fraudulent documents to the court. (Photo by Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)
Zane Kilian, the man accused of killing Lt. Col. Charl Kinnear, has been added as defendant number six in a case involving five suspects arrested in connection with the failed attempt to assassinate prominent Cape Town defense attorney William Booth. .
The charge sheet now reads: State v. Kauthar Brown, Ebrahim Deare, Riyaad Gesant, Kim Kashiefa Smith, Igsaan Williams, and Zane Kilian.
They face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder stemming from the attempt on the life of 65-year-old criminal lawyer William Booth in Higgovale, Cape Town, on April 9, 2020.
Kilian is also implicated in other charges, including a gang-related charge, illegal wiretapping, accessing or interception of any data related to Booth’s “ping” phone. The charge sheet was delivered to Kilian’s lawyer on Tuesday, October 27 at the Cape Town Magistrates Court after his first appearance in this matter.
A cell phone “ping” is the process of determining the location, with reasonable precision, of a cell phone at any given time using the phone’s GPS location capabilities. It is very similar to GPS vehicle tracking systems. Pinging means sending a signal to a particular cell phone and causing it to respond with the requested data.
Booth was inside his home in Cape Town when two suspects wearing surgical masks fired at his residence but failed and luckily failed, police said at the time.
In Booth’s case, as in the murder of Charl Kinnear of the police anti-gang unit on Friday 18 September in Bishop Lavis, the ping linked Kilian to the attempt on Booth’s life. The state maintains that Kilian’s ping launched the attack on Booth and kept the suspected hitmen informed of the whereabouts of their intended target.
According to the charge sheet, during April 2020 Kilian unlawfully and intentionally accessed or intercepted the data and geographic location of the cell phone linked to Booth’s phone number without his authority or permission.
Booth’s phone is alleged to have been pinged more than 500 times since April 2020. In the Kinnear case, court documents showed that Kilian allegedly pinged the policeman’s phone 2,116 times up to the time he was killed.
The State claims that the five defendants were members of the Terrible West Side gang of Woodstock, who were involved in violent crimes including conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, possession of firearms and drug trafficking.
These are the first gang-related charges the state has instituted against Kilian, but more charges could be added once the targets of the 10,000 pings Kilian took are established and if these pings resulted in gang coups.
Kilian’s attorney, Eric Bryer, said Monday, Oct. 26 in Bellville Magistrates Court that additional charges of murder and attempted murder could be added to his client’s final charge sheet.
The State is determined to prove that Kilian conspired with criminal elements, including underworld figures, in the perpetration of crimes in the Western Cape especially.
Booth has defended many of Cape Town’s most notorious gangsters in the Western Cape, frequently winning their cases and keeping his clients out of jail.
Kinnear, on the other hand, doggedly investigated illicit arms and drug trafficking allegedly between gangsters and corrupt police officers in the Western Cape and Gauteng.
Kilian is accused of pinging Kinnear and Booth’s phones. In doing so, he allegedly assisted criminal elements in their failed attempt on Booth’s life and in the murder of Kinnear.
On Tuesday, October 27, the matter in Cape Town Magistrates Court was postponed until November 10 to request a bond. And on November 27, Kilian’s request for bail in the Kinnear case will be heard in Bellville Regional Court.
Bryer told the media that he intended to write to the Directorate of Public Protections for the two bail requests to be joined.
“I will make arrangements to keep these matters together because it is crazy to have them separately. If worst comes to worst, we have to submit two bail requests. “
Commenting on the court’s decision to transfer his client from Bellville Police holding cells to Goodwood Prison, Bryer said he had no idea why he was transferred.
“Kilian had an interview with a psychiatrist scheduled for Tuesday night, October 27, and the sudden transfer was a shock to us.”
On Kilian’s health, Bryer stressed that his client is in a bad mood. He said that when Kilian signed the bail affidavits Sunday morning, he was “full of the joys in life” but when the additional charges were added, he “gutted” him.
National Tax Authority spokesman Eric Ntabazalila confirmed that Kilian was added as defendant number six in the case involving five other defendants of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit the murder of William Booth.
He said the state would oppose Kilian’s bail. DM / MC
