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Fred was on the stand yesterday describing the final hours he saw Inge.

His story is pretty much the same as during the trial, where he spoke about their last night together, his problems with his brother and the letters Inge gave him the next day.

He also spoke about his day at Old Mutual in Pinelands and how he was there until after 6pm. This included the so-called afternoon “window period” in which the State claimed in the criminal trial that he would have had opportunity to drive to Stellenbosch and commit the crime.

For me personally, this “window period” has never been properly explored. As I pointed out in the original trial, there is a couple hours window that are not accounted for.

I don’t think that Fred could have done the whole trip, murdered Inge, cleaned up, then gone back to work all composed as the window is very small. However this is still the one little detail which provides a niggle of doubt and I wish that it was addressed properly.

Many people I have spoken to are pretty supportive of Fred now. Most are talking about how the cops and prosecutors lied.

“The scary thing is that there seems to be no oversight of the prosecution beforehand that would have stopped this. Cope lie , proscutors can see they lie and know they will be found out to be lying yet still go ahead …. the logic is childish, never mind the bigger point that the whole lot of them are so morally bankrupt they wanted this guy in jail when they knew he did not do it” said one commenter.

When watching the developments surrounding the Anni Dewani murder case, you can see the cops making suggestions that her husband Shrien was involved – even though there is no evidence pointing there as of yet. Is this the same kind of thing?

One has to wonder how many innocent people are languishing in prison because of lying cops and prosecuters who do not expose the lies. One also has to wonder whether people like Agliotti are in the same ship.

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Probably as a direct result of the current lawsuit by Fred van der Vyver against the police and prosecutors, it has been announced that the Hawks will be looking into the case.

Prof Jan Lotz has confirmed that he has been informed by the police commissioner that the matter had been referred to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations in Pretoria.

“It was my impression that there was no real action by police to bring this matter to a close.” he told reporters. “I am convinced that this was a premeditated murder, one that was well-planned and committed by someone close to her”.

“We believe it was probably one of five people, and I believe that all five of those people were at Inge’s funeral. What is needed, is that someone should sit down and really apply themselves to chasing the guilty party from his hiding place.”

“Whatever comes out that can help to identify the murderer, will give the answer and create the space for us and for Fred to go on with our lives.”

Let us hope and pray that the Hawks will investigate the case properly and bring the perpetrator to justice!

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Yesterday saw Prof Gert Saayman, of the University of Pretoria testifying in the civil suit of Fred van der Vyver against the state and police.

Prof Saayman testified that the ornamental hammer which police say was the murder weapon was ‘unlikely’ to have been the weapon to murder Inge Lotz.

He told the court that the hammer had a striking surface only 22mm across, whereas the wounds to Inge’s skull were clearly much larger than this.

He went on to say that in his opinion, the wounds were rather caused by a rigid “linear or cylindrical” object.

Asked by Van der Vyver’s advocte Dup de Bruyn about the likelihood “on the probabilities” of the hammer being the murder weapon, he said: “No. Not used.”

Although this testimony is not yet as electrifying as Bodziak’s testimony, we could still hear more; particularly on the experiments the police conducted on the pig carcass.

At this point, one has to really wonder why the state did not settle this matter out of court. Surely they do not want their incompetance in this case to be highlighted once again?

The case continues.

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William (Bill) Bodziak took the stand to lash out at the police and their footprint evidence, lies they told and false reports written to implicate Fred van der Vyver as the suspect.

He testified that Superintendent Bruce Bartholomew flew to Florida in June 2006 to get his opinion on a bloodstain that Bartholomew had matched to a sports shoe belonging to Van der Vyver.

He tetified that the ‘evidence’ brought over by Bartholomew was woefully inadequate for him to form any opinion.

Asked by advocate Kosie Olivier whether there could have been a misunderstanding during the Florida consultation, Bodziak said he did not know how this was possible, because they had “over and over again” gone over the fact that there were no features in the mark that could be linked to the shoe.

He sent Bartholomew away to do further tests in south Africa.

Bartholomew arrived with the footwear and two CDs which contained the photographs of the blood marking and particularly the heel area of the shoe which Bartholomew said contained “sand grains” , they were not scaled and were only “3×5 inches (7,5cm to 12,5cm) big”.

“Bartholomew alleged there were three small pieces of debris (sand) lodged in the shoe and I explained to him that the debris was too deep in the shoe to make a marking,” said Bodziak, adding that it was these grains of sand that Bartholomew had theorised as one of the main links between the marking in the blood stain and the shoe.

Bartholomew believed that the “three white spots” in the blood had been made by the sand which was lodged in a 5mm deep groove, he said.
[Read more →]

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I do apologise for not writing earlier. I was out of the country and had limited access to the net, but I am back!

The long awaited ‘second trial’ in the Inge Lotz case is well underway. I say ‘second trial’ because most of us who have followed the case will be scrutinising everything said.

Will the spotlight on the police investigators and prosecution team give us further clues to the truth?

One thing that is blatantly obvious is that after 5 years of police inaction, we can infer that they still believe that Fred was their man. Is this mindset jeapardising any possibility of the real killer being caught?

“Prosecutors in the Inge Lotz trial were “deliberately deceived” by police investigating her case, who “withheld information” from them that would have stopped the prosecution of Lotz’s boyfriend, Fred van der Vyver.” according to Dup de Bruyn, the advocate for Fred van der Vyver on the opening day of the civil case for damages amounting to about R46 million.

“(Police) willfully made statements which were willfully false in material respects but for which the prosecution would not have been undertaken.”

Police had also “willfully made inadequate inquiries or none at all when the questions and inquiries cried out for investigation”.

“(They) dishonestly prejudiced the judgment of the prosecuting authority and in so doing, precluded an unfettered exercise of the prosecuting authority’s discretion,” De Bruyn said.

In the coming weeks, four witnesses will be called by the van der Vyver team:
[Read more →]

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FRUIT OF A POISONED TREE
A true story of murder and the miscarriage of justice

By: Antony Altbeker

(To be released in all major bookshops and on Kalahari.net by 24 May 2010)

In June 2005, Fred van der Vyver, a young actuary and the son of a wealthy Eastern Cape farming family, was charged with murdering his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, allegedly bludgeoning her to death with a hammer as she lay on a couch in her lounge.

The case against Van der Vyver seemed overwhelming. His behaviour at the time of the murder appeared suspicious and incriminating, and a letter, penned by Inge on the morning of her death, suggested that the two had been fighting.

But it was forensic evidence that seemed to prove his guilt: his fingerprints were found at the scene, one of his shoes was matched to a blood stain on the bathroom floor, and traces of blood were found on an ornamental hammer that had been given to him by the victim’s parents.

And yet, in one of the most sensational and controversial murder trials in South African legal history, Van der Vyver’s lawyers sought to turn the tables on the police, accusing them of fabricating evidence and lying to the judge.

In Fruit of a Poisoned Tree, prize-winning author Antony Altbeker takes you into the heat of this epic courtroom battle. Altbeker’s eye-witness account of the trial presents the reader with all the evidence and testimony of the trial, while also placing it in the context of a society and a justice system that are
being stretched to breaking point.
[Read more →]

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Today I received this email along with a copy of the press release below:

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

We would appreciate it if you would publish the enclosed press statement on behalf of our client in your publications as soon as possible.

We thank you in anticipation.

BRIAN LOWE
LOWE & PETERSEN ATTORNEYS
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

LOTZ & LOTZ v FB van der Vyver

We have been requested by our client, Mr Fred van der Vyver, to issue the following statement:

For the past few months, a campaign has been waged in the press against our client Mr. Fred van der Vyver in which it has been stated and reported widely that Porfessor and Mrs. Lotz, the parents of Inge Lotz, have found “new evidence” against Mr van der Vyver. Most of these statements have been made by a Ms Dani Cohen as spokesperson for Prof & Mrs Lotz.

Among the statements so made is the allegation that “new, crucial evidence” has been found against Mr van der Vyver to “establish he murdered Inge”.

As a consequence of these press statements Counsel for Mr van der Vyver requested further particulars for trial to the claim instituted against him by Prof. and Mrs. Lotz, referring specifically to Ms Cohen’s statements and requesting the plaintiffs to set out fully what new material fact or facts plaintiffs will rely upon in their action.

In response to such request, the legal representatives of Prof. and Mrs. Lotz’s have replied as follows:

“There are no new material facts upon which the plaintiffs intend to rely.”

Both the request for particulars and the reply thereto are filed at Court.

A letter reserving Mr van der Vyver’s rights against Prof and Mrs Lotz, and Ms Cohen, in regard to the above defamatory statements and the damage that Mr van der Vyver is suffering, will soon be served on the attorneys of Prof and Mrs Lotz.

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Despite the fact that the courts found Fred van der Vyver not only ‘not guilty’ but also ‘innocent’ of murdering Inge Lotz, the parents of Inge are now suing Fred for approximately R4 million each!

Some people have claimed that this is similar to the OJ Simpson trial but there are big differences. In the OJ trial, there was always an element of doubt as to the juries findings. These doubts were based on race issues (evident in juror statements after the trial), evidence that was not presented and even some doubt concerning evidence that was presented in the trial. In the van der Vyver case, the case was far more compelling that he was in fact innocent of the charges.

Personally I think that suing after the case has been decided is wrong and really should not be allowed. I am talking about when a ‘not guilty’ verdict is reached only. A civil court could reach a different decision to a criminal court, because while the latter had to find a suspect guilty “beyond reasonable doubt”, a civil court could find a suspect guilty on “the balance of probabilities”. Doesnt this fly in the face of what a criminal trial is all about?

We all acknowledge the pain and suffering caused to victims families and we whole heartedly sympethise with them. However a civil trial, after the criminal trial has found a defendant ‘not guilty’, somehow suggests spite on the part of the victims family. It also hows that they are not satisfied with the result of the criminal trial, which of course in this case is to be expected. One wonders why they do not rather sue the police for running a shoddy investigation.

I do not think that the Lotz’s reached this decision on their own. As Dup de Bruyn, Fred’s advocate said, he knows who is behind this action and what their motive is. I feel that the Lotz family are now being used by other individuals in order to further their own agenda.

My personal feeling is that the Stellenbosch police are possibly behind it. If the civil action works in the Lotz’s favour, then they will be ‘redeemed’ in the eyes of not only the family but the community at large. This could be just a mere case of disaster management strategy. They can gain credibility because of it – a case of ‘the fish didn’t really get away’. This would somehow justify their investigation.

It would be very interesting if this motive did come out in the court case, because if it is the cops, they will have an aweful amount to lose on this gamble!

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It has been reported that the police are going to charge Werner Carolus with obstructing and defeating the ends of justice. Apparently a docket was registered in Stellenbosch last week which paves the way for the charges.

During the trial Carolus had confessed to police that he had burgled Inge’s flat and that he witnessed his friends killing her.

Daryl Els and Christiaan Botha, the private investigators briefly hired by the Van der Vyver family had decided to investigate the matter further, with Els interviewing Carolus in prison where he got a confession and identification of the others allegedly involved.

Botha said that he had sent his findings to national Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi’s office and also to the Independent Complaints Commission and that he hoped that they would investigate it further.

So now we have another standoff between the police and the former van der Vyver team. Who will ultimately prevail? Will we finally discover the truth?

I don’t have a lot of faith in the Selebi angle. Selebi is currently a tad too concerned with his own leal problems to bother about this case. Maybe we will see some result from the IDC.

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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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