‘A miracle’ Marli cheated death

HENRI VAN BREDA: ‘NO SYMPATHY FOR HIS SISTER’

Judge Desai needs more time to consider appropriate sentence for axe murderer.

Marli van Breda has to grow up alone with the knowledge that her own brother killed her family.

This and the fact that Henri van Breda “has shown no remorse” was the crux of the state’s argument in aggravation of sentencing.

Van Breda, 23, has been convicted of the brutal axe murders of both his parents and older brother, as well as the attempted murder of Marli who was 16 at the time.

The January 2015 murders at the Van Breda family home in the De Zalze security estate in Stellenbosch shocked South Africans, with the 66-day trial regularly making national and even international headlines.

Throughout the trial, Henri maintained his innocence, claiming a laughing, axe-wielding attacker, also armed with a knife, was behind the murders.

Senior State prosecutor Susan Galloway said Marli had survived the attacks, not because of any mercy on the part of the accused, but rather because of “a miracle”.

“There is no remorse, he does not show sympathy for his sister,” she told the court yesterday. “She has lost everything and nothing will ever be the same again for her.

“Despite her age, she tried to ward off her attacker vigorously. She has to go through life with the knowledge that her brother killed her whole family and tried to kill her.

“The same brother who said she was treated like a princess.”

Galloway said the state had decided not to hand in a victim impact report after consulting Marli and her lawyer in the interests of her privacy.

Defence lawyer Piet Botha handed in a report compiled by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders social worker Ariena Smith.

Smith counselled Henri during the trial and described him as “open and honest”. She said he had been guarded at times and didn’t show emotion easily.

Western Cape High Court’s Judge Siraj Desai said yesterday that he needed several days to consider his sentence and will hand it down tomorrow. – ANA