Africa-Press – South-Africa. State prosecutor in the Vicki Terblanche murder, advocate Marius Stander, wanted to know if alleged mastermind, Arnold Terblanche, believes in the tooth fairy during the continuation of his bail application in the Gqeberha Magistrate’s Court today, November 10.
This follows Terblanche’s claim that he was swindled out of money by “a high-ranking police colonel” that allegedly promised to get him out on bail and clear his name.
This so-called colonel, that was known as “Mr A,” has since been identified by Terblanche as Phindile Zweni, chairperson of the South African Sentenced and Awaiting Trial Prisoners Organisation (SASAPO) who has since turned state witness.According to the state, Terblanche paid more than R500 000 to Zweni to bribe a Department of Justice official to get bail, appoint two judges of Terblanche’s liking to hear his appeal against the refusal of his bail based on new facts and to have his co-accused, Reinhardt Leach and Dylan Cullis killed, among other things. Zweni did not attempt any of these things.
The state also alleges that Terblanche paid Zweni to convince Cullis to retract his statement to say that the applicant was not involved in his wife’s murder and to attempt to remove Col. Rhynhardt Swanepoel as investigating officer, which he did not do.However, Terblanche admitted paying the money to Zweni but said that some amounts were loans while others were to help with the “investigation” that Zweni was “conducting” to clear Terblanche’s name and “expose corruption in the SAPS and Correctional Services.”
Stander submitted to the court that Terblanche is not a layman but the director of a business, he therefore would have known that he was being conned by Zweni and couldn’t have thought that Zweni was conducting a real investigation. It was also the state’s submission that Terblanche knew exactly what Zweni was up to and paid him to do exactly that.
“I don’t want to sound disrespectful but does he believe in the tooth fairy? Now he is saying that Zweni is a liar but what does one expect from a toxic relationship between two people, that one would be a priest?” Stander asked, after labelling the relationship between Terblanche and Zweni as a toxic one full of corruption.
One of Stander’s major arguments was that, since the bail application is based on new facts, why Terblanche and his legal team did not come forward with the information about Zweni a long time ago, since the latter allegedly became involved with Terblanche in February 2022 already.
He referred to a new bail application that was started on April 7 and dismissed on May 30 this year and said that it is interesting how Terblanche filed a lengthy application through his legal team but nothing is mentioned about Zweni.
“The court must not be misled and should not attach too much weight to submissions made by his counsel but rather take it with a pinch of salt. I’m not being disrespectful but the applicant does not trust any of these individuals sitting in court today,” Stander said as he pointed to Terblanche’s legal team.
At this point, Terblanche was slowly shaking his head “no” as he sat in the dock.
“If Zweni was according to him, an upstanding citizen in the police who was going to ‘expose the lies of the state,’ why wouldn’t he tell his counsel? Or did they know? We don’t know. What would be the best ‘new fact’ to place before court? That Swanepoel was under investigation, that Zweni was going to take over and clear his name and the court shouldn’t attach too much weight to what Swanepoel has to say.
“What would the reasonable person do? Tell his counsel, but March came, April, May, all the months went by and he still didn’t say anything or open a case with the police. I am asking the court to not be fooled,” Stander continued.
He also made reference to transcripts of telephonic conversations between Zweni and Terblanche’s girlfriend, Krystal Wiggill, who is also a state witness that was in Terblanche’s affidavit and wanted to know how he got a hold of those conversations as these were between two state witnesses.
He also referred to a threatening message that Leonie Jordan, a family member of Vicki’s, received anonymously from a cell phone and submitted to the court that Terblanche was the one who sent the message.
“He claimed that he would not interfere with state witnesses if released on bail, but here he is in possession of communication between two state witnesses. Here he is locked up behind prison gates but he threatens a woman in Pretoria and couldn’t even put his name in the message. At least we know that Arnold Terblanche is a coward,” Stander said.
The bail application continues tomorrow, November 11.
Her body was found in a shallow grave in Greenbushes in October last year.
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