Farm massacre trial postponed

THE Kareeboomvloer farm massacre trial is set to continue again from June 17, after its latest postponement in the High Court in Windhoek last week.

The trial, in which four men are accused of having been involved in the killing of eight people at farm Kareeboomvloer between Rehoboth and Kalkrand on March 4 to 5 2005, was postponed by Judge President Petrus Damaseb on Thursday last week. The postponement is intended to give the prosecution more time to find and disclose additional documentation that one of the defence lawyers involved in the case, Petrie Theron, has requested from the State.Theron is representing Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus (30), who is one of the accused men in the trial.Erasmus’s parents, Justus and Elzabé Erasmus, were the owners of the farm where the killings took place.The couple was also killed in the same incident.Erasmus has pleaded not guilty to all 15 charges, including eight counts of murder, against him and his co-accused.Erasmus is accused of having asked one of his co-accused, Sylvester Beukes (23), to murder his parents.On trial with them are Beukes’s brother, Gavin Beukes (26), who has admitted that he was at the scene of the killings with Sylvester Beukes, who in turn has admitted that he carried out the killings, and Stoney Neidel (31), at whose residence at Rehoboth and at a farm west of Rehoboth a host of items that were stolen from the farm were later stored by the Beukes brothers.Theron has asked the State, represented by Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef, to disclose additional documentation such as phone records to him before he continues to cross-examine one of the witnesses who has testified for the prosecution in the trial.The witness is Paul Beukes, a former colleague of Erasmus at Hertz Rent-a-Car.He is not related to the Beukes brothers, he has told the Judge President.Beukes has testified that he and Erasmus were supposed to work the same afternoon shift at Hertz’s Hosea Kutako International Airport office on March 5 2005.Erasmus however did not arrive at work, Beukes said.When he eventually got hold of Erasmus on his phone at around 15h15 that afternoon, Erasmus sounded like he was in a hurry and told him that he was on his way to the farm, where some problem about which Erasmus did not elaborate had arisen, Beukes testified.According to previous testimony heard during the trial, Erasmus alerted the Police at Rehoboth around 01h30 on March 6 2005 that he had discovered his parents killed at the farm.He told the Police he had driven from Windhoek to the farm because he got worried about his parents when numerous phone calls he had made to the farm went unanswered.He also told another Police officer at the farm on March 6 2005 that he had decided to drive to the farm around 23h00 the previous evening, and that he found his parents murdered around 00h30.He further said his mother had phoned him at about 16h00 the previous day to ask if he wanted to drive with his parents from Windhoek to the farm, as they were going to the farm to check on a report that one of the workers there was sick.Cellphone records show that the last call made from the cellphone number of Erasmus’s mother to Erasmus’s number on March 5 2005 was at 15h29, about 15 minutes after a call that had been made from the phone number of Hertz’s office at the airport to Erasmus’s cell number.Following the latest postponement, the trial is scheduled to continue from June 17 to June 27, from July 14 to July 24, and possibly from September 22 to 26.Erasmus and Neidel are both free on bail.The Beukes brothers remain in custody.The postponement is intended to give the prosecution more time to find and disclose additional documentation that one of the defence lawyers involved in the case, Petrie Theron, has requested from the State.Theron is representing Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus (30), who is one of the accused men in the trial.Erasmus’s parents, Justus and Elzabé Erasmus, were the owners of the farm where the killings took place.The couple was also killed in the same incident.Erasmus has pleaded not guilty to all 15 charges, including eight counts of murder, against him and his co-accused.Erasmus is accused of having asked one of his co-accused, Sylvester Beukes (23), to murder his parents.On trial with them are Beukes’s brother, Gavin Beukes (26), who has admitted that he was at the scene of the killings with Sylvester Beukes, who in turn has admitted that he carried out the killings, and Stoney Neidel (31), at whose residence at Rehoboth and at a farm west of Rehoboth a host of items that were stolen from the farm were later stored by the Beukes brothers. Theron has asked the State, represented by Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef, to disclose additional documentation such as phone records to him before he continues to cross-examine one of the witnesses who has testified for the prosecution in the trial.The witness is Paul Beukes, a former colleague of Erasmus at Hertz Rent-a-Car.He is not related to the Beukes brothers, he has told the Judge President.Beukes has testified that he and Erasmus were supposed to work the same afternoon shift at Hertz’s Hosea Kutako International Airport office on March 5 2005.Erasmus however did not arrive at work, Beukes said.When he eventually got hold of Erasmus on his phone at around 15h15 that afternoon, Erasmus sounded like he was in a hurry and told him that he was on his way to the farm, where some problem about which Erasmus did not elaborate had arisen, Beukes testified.According to previous testimony heard during the trial, Erasmus alerted the Police at Rehoboth around 01h30 on March 6 2005 that he had discovered his parents killed at the farm.He told the Police he had driven from Windhoek to the farm because he got worried about his parents when numerous phone calls he had made to the farm went unanswered.He also told another Police officer at the farm on March 6 2005 that he had decided to drive to the farm around 23h00 the previous evening, and that he found his parents murdered around 00h30.He further said his mother had phoned him at about 16h00 the previous day to ask if he wanted to drive with his parents from Windhoek to the farm, as they were going to the farm to check on a report that one of the workers there was sick.Cellphone records show that the last call made from the cellphone number of Erasmus’s mother to Erasmus’s number on March 5 2005 was at 15h29, about 15 minutes after a call that had been made from the phone number of Hertz’s office at the airport to Erasmus’s cell number.Following the latest postponement, the trial is scheduled to continue from June 17 to June 27, from July 14 to July 24, and possibly from September 22 to 26.Erasmus and Neidel are both free on bail.The Beukes brothers remain in custody.

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