TRUCK driver Mohammed Sathar, who allegedly shot and killed Margate man Richard Duxbury (35) in an incident on the M4 near Montclair two years ago, initially claimed he had not driven his truck on the day of the murder.
Now he has said he was there when two ‘big white men carrying what looked like sticks’ appeared in the road.
Mr Sathar has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Duxbury, as well as to the charge of ‘pointing of a firearm’.
The defence’s version is that Mr Sathar slowed down upon seeing the men and that they jumped on to the steps of his truck.
He said that one of the men assaulted him through the window, and that he reached for his firearm, a shot went off, and he fled.
Last year Mr Duxbury’s father, Brian, testified that he had been with his son on the day of the incident.
He said Mr Sathar’s truck had forced their bakkie off the road, and his son had been shot after he had approached the truck.
On Monday this week the investigating officer, Warrant Officer Marius van der Looy, testified that Mr Sathar had been arrested in March 2012, nine days after the incident.
He said that after Mr Sathar had been arrested, he had claimed a Malawian national named ‘George’ had been driving the truck. He also gave another version to the police, alleging that a white man had assaulted him with a wooden baseball bat.
W/O van der Looy said that the bat had been handed to him by the defence team about a week after Mr Sathar’s arrest.
Mr Sathar’s advocate, Ravi Reddy, asked Mr van der Looy if it was not ‘irregular procedure’ for him to place the bat in the police station’s exhibit register five days after he had received it.
He denied this, saying he had kept it in a safe in his office.
Mr Reddy also said there was ‘nothing sinister’ about Mr Sathar not mentioning the bat when he was questioned by the police because he had not been asked about it.
The case has been adjourned to later this month.
