Brian Wainstein murder: Court to decide whether cellphone records of Booysen, Lifman, Naude can be used as evidence

CAPE TOWN - The Western Cape High Court on Monday heard about the sophisticated software Crime Intelligence uses to intercept cellphone recordings.

Alleged underworld gang boss, Jerome "Donkie" Booysen, and 11 others are on trial for the murder of "Steroid King" Brian Wainstein, who was shot dead in his Constantia home in 2017.

While the trial has been running, alleged underworld figures, Mark Lifman and Andre Naude, along with three other accused, have been killed.

A Crime Intelligence colonel testified on Monday about cellphone recordings extracted from the phones of alleged underworld figures, Booysen, Naude and Lifman.

One of the files shows Crime Intelligence officers were monitoring Booysen, Naude and Lifman's calls since 2015.

However, when the State attempted to play the recordings in court, the file containing the phone calls was found to be corrupted.

After proceedings were delayed when the colonel struggled to play the recordings from his laptop, State prosecutor, Nathan Adriaanse, explained why the software was so complex.

"I enquired from the member of Crime Intelligence whom I spoke to and he said it's because of the fact that if this laptop is to come into the wrong hands, the ordinary person would not be able to know how to use the software that is on the laptop."

A trial-within-a-trial for the court to decide whether the cellphone records can be used as evidence in court is set to continue on Tuesday.