For many lawyers and advocates, representing members of the criminal underworld is proving to be a life-threatening undertaking.

Over the past few years, a number of prominent figures in the legal profession, including advocate Pete Mihalik, have been killed while working on criminal matters involving Cape gangs.

The most recent hit ended the life of city advocate Vernon Jantjies (below), in Mitchells Plain.

TimesLIVE reports,

Cape Town criminal law veteran Vernon Jantjies received an offer he could not refuse. But when he could not deliver on his client’s demand to keep him out of jail at all costs, he paid with his life.

Police spent the past week scouring the Cape Flats for two gunmen who shot Jantjies 13 times outside his linen shop in Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, on Sunday December 1.

CCTV footage showed the suspects escaping the scene in an old grey Toyota Corolla. Police tried to track down the number plate, but so far no arrests have been made.

When killed, Jantjies was serving in an acting position as a magistrate at Khayelitsha Priority Crimes Court, a position that he hoped would be made permanent.

Friends said the advocate had virtually stopped working on criminal cases, but he recently joined the defence team representing Glenda Bird, sister of alleged druglord Fadwaan “Vet” Murphy (below), in a Cape Town high court trial.

Bird, Murphy, his ex-wife Shafieka, Dominic Davidson, Leon Paulsen and Desmond Jacobs face 229 charges including drug dealing, racketeering and money laundering. They are alleged to run one of Cape Town’s biggest drug syndicates.

Unnamed sources have revealed that when Jantjies failed to deliver on the expectation that a case he was involved in would be sunk by his expert defence, he became the target of Cape Town’s latest hit on the legal profession.

“These gang bosses are tired of paying these lawyers large amounts of money and then their guys still go to jail,” said one source.

Another said Murphy’s defence team had taken a lashing in the high court when an attempt to have the case thrown out through a protracted trial-within-a-trial failed. It emerged that Murphy’s henchmen had allegedly been sent to interfere with state witnesses.

Jantjies was killed the day before the Murphy defence team planned on bringing a discharge application under section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act.

As a result, the case has now been delayed.

Meanwhile, more and more lawyers are refusing to take on gang-related criminal matters – and who can blame them?

[source:timeslive]