Panayiotou video decision is set for June
AFTER a gruelling two weeks of testimony in a trial-within-a-trial, a court will rule next month on whether or not to allow a video in which Christopher Panayiotou allegedly implicated himself in his wife’s murder.
The video – an undercover operation by the Hawks – allegedly shows Panayiotou, 30, searching self-confessed middleman Luthando Siyoni for a wire after Jayde’s murder and telling him “it became a kidnapping and a murder instead of just making it a robbery outside the house”.
The defence claims Siyoni was beaten and forced to implicate his former boss and wants the recording to be ruled inadmissible.
The state is meanwhile relying on this piece of evidence as it forms an integral part of their case.
Yesterday, the defence’s final witness in the trialwithinSiyoni’s younger brother Siyanda, said he noticed his brother’s swollen face after his arrest in April 2015.
Yesterday, defence advocate Terry Price closed his case but asked for more time to prepare his argument ahead of judgment due to the voluminous record.
This is what the court heard from the state this week:
Magistrate Lionel Alexander said he visited Siyoni in protective custody and that he never made mention of an assault or any injuries sustained;
Anne Swanepoel, who represented now-deceased suspected hitman Sizwezakhe Vumazonke before she was struck from the roll of attorneys, said he told her he was assaulted by the police. But her recollection of where the assault took place differed to the testimony already before court; From the defence:
Price said the state was yet to prove a motive as to why Panayiotou would order a hit on Jayde;
He said much of what the state claimed in opposing the murder accused’s bail application had never materialised and that many of the allegations against his client were made without first obtaining the so-called evidence under oath;
Swanepoel said Vumazonke – who she had represented several times in the past 15 years – always requested an attorney upon arrest and she was therefore surprised the police now claimed he initially waived his right to legal representation;
Optometrist Thys van Zyl said he examined Siyoni’s girlfriend, Babalwa Breakfast, in November last year and found her to be severely shortsighted and unable to read a document held further than 20cm away.
The defence previously alleged that Breakfast would have been unable to read her own statement – as claimed by the police – because she was, in fact, legally blind.
The matter returns to court on June 17. — TMG