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Dr Chris Landman of the State President’s Commission for the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Commission) told the Cape Argus that the government needs to review the Lotz murder case and investigate the conduct of the State investigators.

He further said that if the investigation revealed that the investigators have acted irregularly, then all their earlier cases need to be reviewed in case other innocent people have been jailed.

I totally agree with Dr Landman. Most of us have known for a very long time that in many cases the police and/or prosecution are corrupt and mishandle cases. My hope is that other people will stand up and condemn the actions of the State and police in the handling of this case in particular and in the way they handle cases generally.

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Daryl Els and Christian Botha, private detectives appointed by the family of Fred van der Vyver, have now also laid charges of intimidation and obstruction of justice against two police officers. They claim that these officers know who killed Inge Lotz and all the details, yet did nothing about it.

Recently they said a witness to the murder has made a second statement to them in the presence of his lawyer. This witness is currently in prison on drug and murder charges.

Els told news sources that according to this witness, three people entered her apartment and killed her. One of these was an acquaintance of hers.

“According to the witness … there were six people in total, but three entered the flat,” he said.

“We have reason to believe their motive was to get money for drugs. All six are known to us and most of them are in jail at the moment waiting to appear on similar charges of murder, robbery and drug dealing.”

Els further said that the reason nothing was stolen from the flat was that ’something had gone wrong’ and the killers fled without taking anything.

The witness had been vistied in prison by the two police officers shortly after Fred was charged and told the witness that he must ‘change his story’ or face the consequences. This was after he had made a statement to them in 2005 already implicating himself in the murder.

Although no names are mentioned, I am fairly certain that this witness is none other than Werner Carolus who I reported on in June in the article: Inge Lotz Murder: The Werner Carolus Story.

If these allegations are true and this sequence of events did happen, it calls into question the motivation of the police in charging Fred. Did they do it to ’save face’? Did they dislike Fred for whatever reason? Were they too lazy to pursue other theories?

I hope that a lot more will come out at the subsequent trials (assuming there will be any!).

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The Inge Lotz murder case has just gotten a whole lot stranger with Lotz private investigator laying charges of defeating the ends of justice and of perjury against key investigators who probed the murder.

Private investigator Niel van Heerden was appointed by Lotz’s family to investigate her murder soon after she was found dead in her Stellenbosch flat on March 16, 2005. He was later removed from the investigation at the insistence of the police investigators.

He accused them of withholding pertinent information from the court. He further accused a third person of perjury as he alleges that that person blatantly lied in court.

The three identities have not been released for legal reasons.

Director Novela Potelwa, spokesperson for provincial police commissioner Mzwandile Petros has confirmed the charges saying: “We are compelled to investigate all charges and will do so.”

Van Heerden said that the actions of the three could have led to life imprisonment of an innocent person.

In his statement he said that evidence he had collected had never been taken into account.

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Fred has been found not guilty … at a cost. Reports are that his family spent R9 – 10 million to prove it to the court.
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They brought in four expert witnesses from around the world, had a team of attorneys and lawyers, private investigators and miscellaneous other expenses. It is no wonder that the cost was so high. After all, what loving parent would not pay everything they had to ensure their child had the best defence possible?

Fred is lucky. He comes from a section of the population that has access to this kind of money. I can’t but help thinking of the millions of other South Africans who do not have access to the same defence as Fred did. Do they get a fair shot at proving their innocence?

Without a good defence, the police have carte blanche in manufacturing evidence, presenting flimsy evidence before the court and/or not bothering with a good investigation. When this repetitively happens, they are exposed as incompetent when someone with money stands up to them – as in this case.

An additional problem is that Legal Aid is so overworked that they probably can not give each case the full attention that it deserves. Added to this are the budget restraints. Would Legal Aid spend millions to bring the best possible witnesses to court? Would they even bother with getting local experts?

The result is a badly defended case and a high probability that the defendant will end up being imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. In our prisons there could be thousands of innocent people who have been wrongly accused and convicted but without the financial means to prove it.

Louis van der Vyver is probably going to sue the police to recoup some of his losses. But also, in his words:

“Having endured what we did, we’ve got a tremendous sensitivity about what this could do to any other person. We would like to do whatever we can to address the [problems in the] system and prevent or limit such a thing happening to anybody else.”

I applaud that he draws attention to this problem. Yet shouldn’t we as a society be doing more?

I feel very strongly that it is high time that the government takes a very close look into the workings of the police, NPA, Legal Aid and the convictions of people currently in prison. Similar action has taken place in the UK over the past several years, resulting in quite a number of convictions being declared ‘unsafe’ and subsequently being quashed.

It is about time we had reform in all aspects of the criminal justice system in South Africa. Maybe then we can live in a law-abiding country! Maybe then people will respect the legal system.

I will end this article with a couple of famous quotes:

It is far better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer
-Sir William Blackstone

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law
-Oliver Goldsmith

The jury, passing on the prisoners life, may, in the sworn twelve have a thief or two guiltier than him they try
-William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

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Now that Fred van der Vyver has been found not guilty, one wonders what the fallout will be. In latest media reports it is speculated that the van der Vyver family could sue the police for up to R20-million in damages for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution, the cost of his defence, loss of income and damage to his reputation.

However I feel that a lot more should happen. Certain of the police should be arrested and charged for defeating the ends of justice at the very least. This will send a very clear message to the police to do their jobs properly!

First up should be former police footprint expert Bruce Bartholomew. He blatantly lied and mislead not only the court but also the state team and his superiors. He would have gotten away with the lies had Bodziak not heard of it and contacted the defence team. Judge van Zyl called his testimony “unreliable and misleading”.

Second up is the police ballistics expert Frans Maritz. He presented misleading information on the ornamental hammer by not mentioning that it had bent on the first strike during tests on the pigs carcass. He then replaced the bent hammer with another identical one for presentation in the court. Judge van Zyl said that this “bordered on the unprofessional and that his presentation in court was “unscientific”.

(Rest of post unrecoverable)

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