Perjury drama in Jayde trial
Drama as key state witness arrested for perjury
THE state turned the tables on its own witness yesterday, charging middleman Luthando Siyoni’s girlfriend with perjury and defeating the ends of justice for backtracking on two affidavits in which she revealed everything she knew about Jayde Panayiotou’s murder.
Police officials waiting in the wings pounced as Babalwa Breakfast stepped off the witness stand yesterday, immediately placing her under arrest.
Breakfast, 27, sobbed uncontrollably as she was led to the holding cells at the Port Elizabeth High Court.
Earlier, Judge Dayalin Chetty declared Breakfast to be a hostile witness, affording state advocate Marius Stander an opportunity to cross-examine her.
While Breakfast admitted to signing the two statements last year, she denied the content thereof.
On April 27 – just days after Jayde’s kidnapping and murder – Breakfast told a policeman that Christopher Panayiotou, 30, had approached her boyfriend asking him to kill his wife.
She said while Siyoni, 31, said he was unable to do the killing himself, he agreed to recruit hitmen to do the job.
Breakfast said the alleged triggerman, Sizwezakhe Vumazonke, 36, who has since died, had phoned Siyoni on April 20, asking for his money.
Panayiotou later arrived at Siyoni’s Zwide home and Siyoni went out to meet him.
Later, she saw R50 000 in Siyoni’s gym bag and he asked her to divide the money in bundles of R10 000.
The next day he phoned her to come outside and bring the money to him.
Breakfast gave two statements. One in KwaNobuhle on April 27, and a second at the Kabega Park police station during the early hours of the following morning.
Stander said he found it strange then, if Breakfast was now denying what was written in her statements, how two policemen had recorded the same story.
Stander said that through phone records he could prove that the phone call between Vumazonke and Siyoni did in fact take place, and that Siyoni did phone Breakfast when she initially claimed he phoned and asked her to bring the money to him.
Stander said Breakfast had told police that Vumazonke was driving a white vehicle, something that turned out to be true.
Meanwhile, Breakfast told defence advocate Terry Price SC that she had wanted her brother to accompany her to the police station, but the officers had dropped him back home before driving her 26km to KwaNobuhle. Siyoni was in a separate vehicle. Breakfast insisted that her statement was not given to her to read before signing. She said her eyesight was bad and she had to hold a document close to her face in order to be able to read it.
Breakfast and Siyoni were placed in separate rooms at the KwaNobuhle police station, where they were questioned for three hours.
She said when she saw her boyfriend again the following morning at Kabega Park police station he had had a swollen eye and a split lip. His jeans were allegedly torn between his legs.
The defence claims Siyoni was beaten into implicating Panayiotou.
Price told Breakfast: “Remember you are in front of a high court judge, no one can hurt you here. Did anyone threaten you?”
Breakfast responded that she had not been threatened.
Siyoni, who was declared a Section 204 witness last year, was held in protective custody at the Humewood police station.
Breakfast said investigating officer Captain Kanna Swanepoel had often taken her to visit her boyfriend.
She insisted that she did not know Panayiotou or his family and that she was not trying to protect anyone.
Breakfast’s dramatic arrest upset the defence, with lawyer Peter Daubermann claiming that the accused’s right to a fair trial was being prejudiced.
“The message being sent out is if witnesses come to court and tell the truth ... something the state doesn’t want to hear, they will be arrested,” Daubermann said.
But Constable Yandiswa Kumla said he had written down exactly what Breakfast relayed to him.
Kumla took down Breakfast’s statement and commissioned it at the Kabega Park police station at 3.20am on April 28.
“I did not know what the case was about. I was only told to take her statement because she is more comfortable speaking Xhosa,” Kumla said.
He said he had read the statement to Breakfast before handing it to her to read once more.
There were a few changes to be made and Breakfast was asked to initial alongside those.
Asked by Price to show the court how Breakfast had read her statement, Kumla bent his head towards the piece of paper. “She read like this,” he said.
The trial continues today. Breakfast will appear in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court today.