The murder trial of Polokwane businessman Rameez Patel will run into its sixth year in February 2023, following the presiding Judge Joseph Raulinga, falling ill last week.

During the proceedings on November 9, acting Judge Lesibana Ledwaba said Raulinga had been hospitalised.

Ledwaba mentioned that the presiding judge believed that not many issues in the case were pending and that the matter should be put down for December.

In August alone, the trial was moved several times with Raulinga complaining that minor setbacks are delaying the case, including load-shedding.

However, defence lawyer Mahomed Saleem Khan suggested that it rather be postponed to next year as they had expected to give further evidence through the testimony of a medical expert soon, but given the adjournment, the expert would only be available in February next year.

Patel is on trial in the Limpopo High Court: Polokwane Division for killing his wife, Fatima, at their home in Nirvana in 2015. The state maintains that Patel killed his wife after a heated argument.

He previously faced another murder case in which he was accused of killing his mother in 2017. However, the charges against Patel in his mother Mahajeen Patel’s murder case, were withdrawn in August 2021.

Another notable incident occurred in 2018, when Patel’s brother was shot just a few days before he was meant to testify against him.

A year later, the brother testified that he was at the couple’s home when Fatima was killed.

Patel’s father was killed in a robbery in 2016, while the father of his current wife, Nazreen, was kidnapped and killed in 2018.

Even so, the police have not linked Rameez to the murders of his father and father-in-law as well as to the shooting of his brother.