Defence wants cell evidence rejected

CELLPHONE evidence that could possibly implicate Renaldo Van Rooyen in the murder of Kuilsriver mother of two, Zara Hector, should be inadmissible, the defence told the Western Cape High Court.

This is after State prosecutor Maria Marshall was about to call a witness who would enter cellphone evidence into record. The witness was not on the State’s witness list. Marshall said the evidence was received by the State last month.

Advocate Peter Burgers, for Van Rooyen, argued the new evidence should be excused from court records.

“The defence is taken by surprise by this late disclosure and records would not be in the best interests of my client,” he said.

“Why did it take more than a year to acquire these documents? Why was no action taken when the 205 subpoena was made?” he said.

“If something is not in the docket then this infringes the accused’s right to a speedy trial,” he said.

Marshall said there was no intention to deliberately ambush the trial of the accused.

“At no stage was there any attempt from the State not to disclose information to the defence. When we received the information we sent it immediately to the defence,” said Marshall.

She suggested that the court could maybe afford the defence more time to look at the evidence as a remedy for the late disclosure. Judge Lister Nuku will make his ruling on this today.

Van Rooyen, 34, and Tawfeeq Ebrahim, 26, are accused of killing Hector on March 15, 2016 and dumping her body on a farm in Groot Drakenstein.