Coligny murder pair back in court amid controversy about witness

After an explosive report in Afrikaans weekly Rapport last Sunday suggested Pakisi had lied in the trial to implicate the accused, a report ob Tuesday in the Sowetan suggested there was more to the matter.

Rapport revealed it had heard a recording in which Pakisi said he hadn’t been telling the truth when he claimed in testimony that the farm workers had murdered Mosweu.

Community members, including Economic Freedom Fighters members in red party regalia, had regularly packed the public gallery during the trial.

Doorewaard and Schutte were ruled to have assaulted Mosweu and thrown him out of the moving bakkie on April 20 2017 at Rietvlei farm near Coligny after accusing him of stealing sunflower heads from their employer Pieter Karsten’s sunflower plantation.

Judge Ronnie Hendricks also found them guilty of kidnapping, intimidation, theft and pointing of a firearm.

They claimed they had intended taking Mosweu to the police station, but he died after jumping off their moving bakkie.

The state, however, alleged the murder was premeditated.

Rapport revealed that a preacher from Mahikeng, Paul Morule, told them Pakisi had admitted to him that he had lied and could no longer stay silent about it.

The next day, however, Pakisi told the Sowetan he was actually forced to change his testimony and that Morule’s recording was gained through alleged intimidation by being shown a firearm and being forced to read an allegedly already prepared statement.

He went back to standing by what he had said earlier in court.

Sowetan reported that Pakisi went to his local police station last Monday and said under oath that he was forced by one of the accused’s relatives to lie. He had earlier been kept in witness protection, but was sent home in August and claims to have been attacked twice since.

Morule told the Sowetan that the new confession would ultimately stand up to scrutiny, as Pakisi had repeated it before his own lawyer later, and there was also a recording of that. Morule had leaked the first recording to Rapport, he said.

North West police also confirmed that Pakisi had told them about how he was allegedly intimidated into lying, and a case of intimidation was opened.