AKA Murder Trial: Airport Footage Draws Identity Challenge

AKA‘s murder trial turned to airport video Monday as the defense challenged whether a man seen following him could be identified.

The Durban High Court saw the video on October 19. It showed AKA moving through King Shaka International Airport on the day he was killed, including a stop at a car-rental counter.

Eyewitness News reported that the state did not ask the airport’s analyst to identify the man. The outlet said he resembled defendant Mziwethemba Gwabeni, but that description did not come from an identification by the witness.

Gwabeni’s lawyer, William Nicholson, argued that the man could not be identified and that the witness lacked the ability to do so.

The footage showed a man near the rental counter’s entrance while AKA was inside. When the rapper left, the man seemed to follow him toward the parking lot.

AKA wore a purple jacket, while the man wore shorts and appeared to speak on a phone. He walked past the rental area before turning back and looking toward parked cars.

The airport analyst said the system could not export footage for use on other devices, though he could make still images and had given those to the state.

“When viewing this footage, you are viewing the original and not the copy,” he told the court, The Star reported.

Nicholson also questioned whether the witness was breaching work rules by testifying. The analyst said the airport had agreed to show the video after an officer working on the case asked for it. He did not know if they had been summoned to court.

The state had told a bail court that Gwabeni followed AKA at the airport. Monday’s session brought the footage itself before the trial court, where the defense challenged what it could establish.

AKA, born Kiernan Forbes, and his friend Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane were shot dead on Durban’s Florida Road on February 10, 2023. All seven men pleaded not guilty in the case, which includes murder, conspiracy, attempted-murder and gun charges.

The airport evidence followed last week’s accounts of the shooting’s aftermath. The current trial block runs through November 6, and the analyst was due to return to the stand Tuesday, October 20.