Parachute tamperer guilty

– A South African who joined the British Army was found guilty yesterday of attempting to murder his wife on two occasions, by tampering with her parachute and causing a gas leak at their home.

The jury at Winchester Crown Court in southern England heard that Emile Cilliers, 38, an Army sergeant, loosened a gas valve at his home in March 2015, hoping his wife Victoria would turn on the cooker.

The couple’s two young children were in the house at the time, but the attempt failed.

Less than a week later, the victim suffered severe injuries to her spine, leg and ribs after miraculously surviving a fall from 1 200m when her parachute failed.

The trial heard that Cilliers, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps and an experienced parachute packer, tampered with equipment he knew his wife was going to use. Cilliers had taken the chute into a toilet cubicle at the airfield and sabotaged it, causing both the main and reserve chutes to fail.

“It became apparent from an early stage that the only possible cause of the failure of both the main chute and the reserve was deliberate human intervention,” said prosecutor Amanda Sawetz.

“The evidence all pointed to Emile Cilliers as the man with the motive and the opportunity to commit these calculated attempts to murder his wife.”

Mrs Cilliers, a highly-experienced parachuting instructor, suffered near-fatal injuries when both her main and reserve parachutes failed when she took part in a jump at the Army Parachute Association. She managed to slow her fall from about 160km/h to 50km/h, with her reserve chute partially opening shortly before impact.

Cilliers, originally from South Africa, will be sentenced at a later date. –

The evidence all pointed to Emile Cilliers as the man with the motive and the opportunity. Amanda Sawetz Prosecutor