Rohde defence lawyer, State pathologist clash

THE defence lawyer in the Jason Rohde trial said the State’s second witness was “100% incorrect” in his autopsy report yesterday.

Now in its sixth week, the Rohde murder trial resumed at the Western Cape High Court with State forensic pathologist Dr Akmal Coetzee-Khan being cross-examined by defence lawyer Graham van der Spuy.

Rohde is accused of murdering his wife Susan during a company conference at Spier Wine Estate in July last year.

Cross-examination of Coetzee-Khan started in October but was postponed after he fell ill.

Van der Spuy disputed strongly that Coetzee-Khan’s autopsy was correct, saying “it did not make for logic”.

“I consulted with two prominent forensic pathologists, one of whom is an anatomical pathologist and they disagree with your report entirely,” Van der Spuy said.

In his report, Coetzee-Khan said the death of Susan Rohde “didn’t correspond with a hang- ing… I was considering manual strangulation”.

Tensions in the courtroom ran high when Van der Spuy accused Coetzee-Khan of “not telling the truth” with regard to his report and how the autopsy was recorded by note-taking.

“What? Are you implying that I am lying? You’ve never seen me perform an autopsy and every person works differently. You are inferring that I missed something and that is incorrect. I am telling you what I recorded,” Coetzee-Khan said.

“These notes do not make for logic,” Van der Spuy retorted.

“That is your opinion. If another pathologist said what I recorded was incorrect, they should come testify to that,” Coetzee-Khan said.

Van der Spuy alluded to discrepancies between Coetzee-Khan’s handwritten notes, typed up report and his testimony.

Coetzee-Khan disputed this saying his handwritten notes were recorded as a guideline for his typed-up report.