Coligny murder pair back in court amid controversy about witness

The sole witness was making headlines this month for allegedly changing his story, only to then claim he'd been intimidated.

Coligny convicted murderers Phillip Schutte (left) and Pieter Doorewaard appear in the North West High Court. Picture: ANA

The two men convicted of the murder of Coligny teenager Matlhomola Mosweu, 16, are due to appear in the North West High Court in Mahikeng for sentencing on Monday.

Pieter Doorewaard, 27, and Phillip Schutte, 34, were found guilty in October 2018 of killing Mosweu, of Scotland informal settlement in Coligny, in April 2017.

They accused him of stealing sunflower heads from their employer Pieter Karsten’s field at Rietvlei farm about 3km from Coligny.

They claimed Mosweu jumped from a moving bakkie while they were taking him to the police station, a claim the court has rejected. The sole eyewitness to the incident, Bonakele Pakisi, testified in court that Mosweu did not jump, but was thrown from the van.

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.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.