In a court case that has been on the go for 14 years, the alleged rapists and killers of 17-year-old Cytheria Rex are preparing to bring an application to be freed, after the case was postponed 116 times.
Legal experts have called the marathon trial a miscarriage of justice, and the accused’s constant changing of attorneys as a tactic to force witnesses to withdraw.
Virgil Sass, Oswill Grootboom, Imeraan Hendricks, Lee Cloete, Rhonwen Rhode and Keenan Lewis are expected to make an appearance at the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court next month.
Another accused, Warren Robertson, was murdered in 2017.
At a court appearance last month, the accused requested for Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act to be instituted because the magistrate’s contract had come to an end, reveals the Weekend Argus.
This particular section allows for charges to be withdrawn.
Cytheria’s parents, Keith and Jacqueline, have given up hope in the justice system.
Keith no longer attends the court case due to the delays while Jacqueline has pleaded with the judiciary not to free her daughter's alleged killers.
Cytheria was raped, stabbed over 40 times and her throat and stomach slit open before being stuffed into a wheelie bin that was dumped on a field in Eikendal, Kraaifontein on February 22, 2009. A bloody trail led police to her alleged killers.
A hartseer Jacqueline says: “The forensic [report] said the wound to her heart was the one that killed her.”
The mother claims the killers tried to burn her daughter so that her body could fit into the wheelie bin.
“That is why I say these people cannot be freed, look how brutally they murdered my child.”
National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila says the last witness testified on October 27, and that the State closed its case with a postponement to February 27 for the Section 174 application.
“This case has been postponed several times due to the accused changing legal representatives, failing to appear in court, and their legal representatives withdrawing their mandates,” Ntabazalila adds.
“The NPA has all the intentions to finalise cases within a reasonable time but when accused are part of the reasons for delays, our hands are tied.”
Bronwyn Pithey, a legal practitioner for the Women’s Legal Centre, says: “This is an absolute miscarriage of justice.
“If the magistrate’s contract has come to an end it should have been extended and this is an administration issue.
“These postponements due to lawyers or legal representatives being changed can sometimes be a strategy by the accused to make a victim get tired and they may choose to withdraw and when there is a deceased victim, for the witnesses who cannot cope anymore with the case hanging over their heads.”
Weekend Argus