Judge set to rule on Jordan 'confessions'
March 21, 2006 Edition 1
Di Caelers
The judge in the baby Jordan Leigh Norton murder trial is adamant that he will give his decision by Thursday on whether three alleged confessions may be admitted into evidence.
The Cape High Court goes into recess from Friday until April 3, and Judge Basheer Waglay has made it clear that he wants the question mark over the alleged confessions by three of the five accused cleared up before then.
The alleged confessions link the four men who are accused of the murder to one another, but also to alleged murder mastermind Dina Rodrigues, and the State has fought hard to see them admitted into evidence.
The defence is saying they were made as a result of threats and intimidation.
Although the court was prepared to sit until 8pm yesterday to help ensure an end to the trial within a trial was possible by the end of the week, it emerged that the final witness to be called by Charles Simon, for Rodrigues's four co-accused, was ill.
The case was adjourned early yesterday and will continue tomorrow morning. Judge Waglay warned the State and the defence to make sure that they had their closing arguments ready.
Sipho Mfazwe, Mongezi Bobotyane, Rodrigues, Zanethemba Gwada and a 16-year-old youth have pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy to commit murder, aggravated theft and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Rodrigues has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of intimidation for allegedly sending threatening SMSes to Neil Wilson, her former boyfriend and Jordan's biological father.
Yesterday, Judge Waglay ruled for the defence when he refused State advocate Nicolette Bell permission to grill Bobotyane on the contents of his alleged confession.
The details of the confession are not before the court, but, during his bail application last year, it emerged that Bobotyane admitted in the statement that he was the one who actually stabbed the baby to death on June 15 last year.
Judge Waglay said he would make public the reasons for his decision at the end of the trial.
Yesterday, Simon's second-last witness to take the stand was the mother of the accused youth, who cannot be named because it would identify her son, a juvenile.
Under cross-examination by Bell, she accused Nyanga policeman Griffiths Adonis of lying several times.
Adonis was sent to fetch her to be present during the questioning of her son and took the alleged statement.
The youth's mother contradicted evidence from both Adonis and investigating officer Captain Esmerald Bailey.
Adonis testified that when the woman had been brought to Cape Town the day after the arrest, she had cried when she saw her son and asked him what he had done.
Adonis said he had had to console her.
But the woman was adamant yesterday that when she entered the interview room, her son and Bailey were present. She said she had asked her son why he was there and he replied that police had accused him of killing a child.
She said her son had cried, but she never had and Adonis had not consoled her.
Bailey has testified that she ha not seen the woman that morning at Gwada's house, and that she had fully explained his rights to Gwada.
The woman said Bailey had definitely seen her because she went into Gwada's house.
She told the court Bailey had not told Gwada why she was handcuffing him. It was, in fact, she who kept asking Gwada what they had done, the woman said.
Adonis had testified that during the interview with the woman and her son the day after his arrest, he had explained the charges as well as her son's rights, in Xhosa. The woman countered that all Adonis had said was that her son should tell the truth.
Adonis testified that the woman and her son had understood the rights, but the youth's mother said yesterday she had never said that.
dic@incape.co.za
