Zane Kilian: Suspected cop-killer ‘also targeted top attorney William Booth’

Zane Kilian, the man who was allegedly integral to the murder of top Cape Town detective Charl Kinnear in September, has been informed that he will also be charged with conspiracy to kill well-known Cape Town attorney William Booth, who was involved in an attempted hit at his home in April. Kilian has also been additionally charged with fraud on Monday having falsely claimed to be working as a private detective. 

A plethora of additional charges are set to fall on former rugby player Kilian, whose involvement in the tracking and pinging of cellular devices is believed to have been central to the high-profile assassination. An extensive list of numbers are understood to have been tracked, and he will remain in custody until the investigation is complete, having abandoned his bail application for now. 

Kilian facing plethora of additional charges  

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila told The South African on Monday 26 October that following his appearance at the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on Monday 26 October, Kilian’s bail application was postponed. 

“The application did not go ahead as the magistrate who will preside over it will only be available on 27 November 2020,” he said. “All parties agreed that the case postponed till then.” 

Eric Bryer, Kilian’s attorney, said that the bail application had been also been postponed because of concerns that his client would only be rearrested on new charges should he successfully be granted bail. He confirmed that the attempted killing of Booth was among the possible charges about to be brought on Kilian. 

“Realistically the defence team took a decision not to proceed with the bail application today because it would have been stupid to do so as he would have hopefully been granted bail today only to walk out of court and get arrested on other charges,” he said. 

“I discussed it with the State and it was better that they complete all their investigations, or as much as they can do, within a month and then we can hear the bail application. That way we don’t have to go backwards and forwards and repeat the whole process.”

“It’s just not prudent to do the one and then come back on the second, the third, and the fourth charges.” 

NPA add fraud charge to docket  

Ntabazalila said that the fraud charge that was levelled on Monday follows a submission by Kilian’s council that he was a registered member of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (Prisa), and that his tracking antics were “part of his job”. 

“We can also add that a new charge of fraud has been added to the charge sheet. This charge relates to documents which were submitted by his defence on 9 October 2020 at the Bishop Lavis Magistrates Court where the defence told the magistrate that the accused was a registered private investigator and what he was doing was part of his job,” he said. 

It has been confirmed that the accused is not registered with PSIRA, Ntabazalila said.

Kilian tracked ’10 000 numbers in six-months’ 

Bryer said that despite the damning evidence that has allegedly been collected by the State they still face a “monumental task” to prosecute his client. 

“They know that they have a lot of investigations to complete, and there are no guarantees whatsoever that they will be ready by the 27th,” he said. “They’ve had 35 days and plenty of time to trump up these charges, but they have chosen to do it this way and we have no option but to face the music.”

Bryer said that Kilian had allegedly pinged 10 000 numbers in six months. 

“We haven’t seen the number list so we’re just guessing at this point,” he said. “Your number, my number, anyones number could be on that list, so they are going to look through each and every one of them. There could be many more charges, one doesn’t know.”

 The case will return to the Bellville Regional Court 1 on 27 November.