Brothers guilty of farm massacre

AFTER close to six and a half years of being accused of having masterminded the murder of his parents and six other people at their farm south of Rehoboth, ‘Shorty’ Erasmus is a free man again.

Windhoek resident Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus was found not guilty on all charges – including eight counts of murder – in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.The man whose claims led to Erasmus’s arrest in mid-March 2005, Rehoboth resident Sylvester Beukes (26), and his brother, Gavin Beukes (30), were both convicted on eight counts of murder and charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery with aggravating circumstances, defeating or obstructing the course of justice, arson, and possession of firearms and ammunition without a licence.Judge President Petrus Damaseb also found Rehoboth area resident Stoney Neidel guilty, on counts of theft and possession of firearms without a licence.Erasmus was tearful after the delivery of the verdict. He embraced his sister, Yolande Erasmus, after the court had adjourned, and then walked away as a free man with her. He would first need to catch his breath and come to terms with his acquittal, which came as ‘an enormous relief’, Erasmus told The Namibian late yesterday afternoon. He said the past six years and four months have been a trying time, but he has been able to cope with support from his friends, family and his faith. He feels like an 18-year-old again, with his life starting afresh once more, Erasmus said.The four men were on trial over the massacre of eight people at farm Kareeboomvloer between Rehoboth and Kalkrand during the weekend of March 4 to 5 2005.Two of the people who were killed were the owners of the farm, Justus and Elzabé Erasmus (both 50), who were the parents of ‘Shorty’ Erasmus. The other six victims of the massacre were an employee of the Erasmus couple, Sunnybooi Swartbooi (35), Swartbooi’s pregnant wife, Hilma Engelbrecht (32), their children, Christina Engelbrecht (6) and Regina Gertze (4), Swartbooi’s brother, Settie Swartbooi (50), and Deon Gertze (18), who was a nephew of Hilma Engelbrecht.The victims were shot dead, and five of them – with the exception of the Erasmus couple and Sunnybooi Swartbooi – were afterwards set on fire in a storeroom at the farm.Sylvester Beukes, who is a former employee of the Erasmus couple, admitted during the trial that he committed the murders at the farm. He went much further – claiming that ‘Shorty’ Erasmus had asked him to murder Erasmus’s parents.Erasmus vehemently denied these allegations during the trial. Beukes also claimed that while his brother was present at the farm when the murders were committed, he was holding his brother captive and tied up at times and Gavin Beukes was not involved in the killings.Neidel was drawn into the affair when a hoard of goods, including firearms, which the Beukes brothers had stolen from the farm was later stored at Neidel’s house at Rehoboth and on a communal farm west of the town.In his verdict the Judge President noted that forensic evidence about medium and high-velocity blood spatter that was found on Gavin Beukes’s shoes indicated that he must have been close to – five metres or less away from – the source of that blood spatter.The court also heard that this sort of blood spatter would be caused when someone is shot. This scientific evidence is not reconcilable with Gavin Beukes’s claims, as relayed to the court in his plea explanation at the start of the trial, that he had not been near the murders when these were committed, the Judge President found.Judge President Damaseb also noted that Gavin Beukes had clear opportunities to disassociate himself from his brother, the self-confessed killer of eight people, after they had left the farm. He however never disassociated himself from his brother or took any steps to report the crimes at the farm before the two brothers were arrested on March 6 2007, the Judge President said.He found that it had been proven that Gavin Beukes had acted in concert with Sylvester Beukes when the latter committed the crimes at the farm.On Sylvester Beukes’s claims that Erasmus had recruited him to commit a contract killing in which Erasmus’s parents were the principal targets the Judge President said he agreed with Erasmus’s defence lawyer, Petrie Theron, that Beukes was a single witness.Judge President Damaseb added that he was taking into account that Beukes is ‘a self-confessed mass murderer’ who, faced with the inevitability of his fate at the altar of justice, had tried to minimise the role that his brother played in the crimes.After the brothers were arrested there was an inexplicable delay of eight days before Beukes first made the allegations about a contract killing against Erasmus, the Judge President also noted.Before he made that statement in which he implicated Erasmus, Beukes had admitted during a Magistrate’s Court appearance that he committed the murders, and that his motive was that he wanted to take revenge against Erasmus’s father for having allegedly treated him badly when he was employed by Erasmus Sr, the Judge President also noted.He concluded that he was not satisfied that it had been proven that Erasmus contracted Sylvester Beukes to murder his parents.With regard to Neidel, who like Gavin Beukes did not testify in his own defence, Judge President Damaseb found that he had planned the theft committed at Kareeboomvloer with the Beukes brothers.The three convicted men are returning to court today to hear when the sentencing phase of their trial will take place.Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef has been conducting the prosecution. Sylvester Beukes is being represented by Titus Ipumbu, Gavin Beukes by Titus Mbaeva, and Neidel by Boris Isaacks.

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