State witness admits planning to ‘evade’ charges in pig farm murders
The Onverwacht pig farm murder trial took a turn as the key witness admitted he and the accused planned to ‘evade’ the case.
POLOKWANE – The key state witness in the Onverwacht pig farm murder trial told the court that he would not be surprised if the first accused, Zachariah Olivier, had a different version of events, because the two had discussed how to “evade this” after their arrest.
Rudolf de Wet was responding to a line of questioning from Olivier’s lawyer, Adv Jakobus Venter, who cross-examined him on the direction of the shots that killed Maria Makgatho and Lucia Ndlovu.
Read more: Pig farm murder trial: State witness says accused ordered him to open fire
Their bodies were later found partially consumed in a pigsty on Olivier’s farm in August last year.
Venter put it to De Wet that Olivier might recall the direction of the gunfire differently. De Wet replied: “Since we were both arrested, we started planning how we intend to evade this, so I do expect that he will have a different version from mine based on those discussions.”
De Wet, now 20, said he fired warning shots and could only see silhouettes in the dark. He also told the court that Olivier had previously fired shots to scare off people who came onto the farm to collect expired dairy products that had been dumped for pigs.
De Wet’s murder charges were provisionally withdrawn after he agreed to testify under Section 204 and has been on the stand for several days in the Polokwane Division of the Limpopo High Court.
Read more: Limpopo pig farm murder: Charges dropped against state witness De Wet
The court also heard that Mabutho Ncube, the husband of the late Ndlovu, survived the attack despite suffering a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He managed to flee to the main road to seek help.
Olivier and the third accused, William Musora – also a farm employee – remain in custody facing charges of murder and attempted murder.
On Friday, the trial was postponed to today (Wednesday) after Venter requested time to travel to Pretoria to collect a private ballistics report.
Read more: High emotions force adjournment in Limpopo pig farm murder trial
The state argued that Venter’s report differed from theirs and needed time to review it before continuing cross-examination of De Wet.
“The first one contains 13 pages. The second one contains about three to four pages. This is the one that I have. It was forwarded to me, but I don’t have the first one. The second one is just a supplementary,” state prosecutor Adv George Sekhukhune said.
