The trial involving Margate businessman Rowan Adamson (31) is expected to continue in the Izingolweni Magistrate’s Court next Monday (8th).

The case has been set down for three days. Mr Adamson is facing two charges of conspiracy to kidnap. He was arrested in May 2019 and released on R5 000 bail.

In November last year, the court heard the evidence of beekeeper Yzelle Greyling, who spent some 10 hours bound and gagged in the boot of a car after being abducted at gunpoint in Umzumbe.

On the second day of the court proceedings, Alistair Grobbelaar (47) spent much of the day testifying. Mr Grobbelaar was one of the three kidnappers involved in kidnapping Ms Greyling. All three, Grobbelaar, André Breedt (34) and Lindani Raymond Mnguni, pleaded guilty in May 2019.

They were sentenced to an effective six years in jail but released after 14 months. On day three of the hearing last November, Warrant Officer Abraham ‘Stompie’ Sonnekus of Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) Hawks, Port Shepstone, took to the witness box.

The court heard how on May 29 in 2019 W/O Sonnekus assisted in the case by searching for Ms Greyling in the Umzumbe area.

“We were tracking her phone which was pinging off the steel bridge in the vicinity of Umzumbe,” he said.

On the same day, he received a phone call from Mr Grobbelaar, saying that Ms Greyling was in Southport (initially) and that she was safe. Ms Greyling was found unharmed and Mr Grobbelaar was arrested.

After interviewing him, W/O Sonnekus said police proceeded to a house in Pumula where she had been subsequently taken and was being held. It was there, W/O Sonnekus told the court, that they found duct tape which had ‘clearly been wrapped around someone’s arms’.

They later arrested Mr Mnguni. W/O Sonnekus said he received a phone call from W/O Michael Welsh, informing him that Mr Adamson wanted to see him.

He met him at a garage in Margate. “With a very arrogant attitude, he indicated to me that I was accusing him of kidnapping and that he was not involved in a kidnapping case,” he said. “I advised him to make contact with his attorney, Kingsley du Plessis, and seek legal advice.

He shoved his phone towards me and said I can check on his phone. “While he was passing his phone to me, I noticed it was busy with a software update. I handed the phone back to him. It was a clear indication to me the phone was getting ‘wiped’, that’s the technology we use.” W/O Sonnekus assisted investigating officer, W/O Christian du Plessis, with the tracing of the number plates of the vehicle allegedly used in the kidnapping.

He established that the number plate belonged to a man who had reported it stolen to the police on April 30, 2019. The number plate had been stolen from the man’s car while it was parked on Belville Road in Margate.

Magistrate Levien Yengopal asked W/O Sonnekus if it had ever been revealed to him that during the actual kidnapping of Ms Greyling that the accused didn’t know about it; that it was done, and then they called him?

“No, Your Worship, from the evidence from the CCTV footage taken in Margate and cellphone communication (I’m not an expert in cellphones) and my interaction with the accused during the arrest, they all knew about this. In my opinion it was a planned operation,” he said.

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