Riana kidnap suspect to apply for bail
Details emerge of how man was nabbed shortly after biokineticist was grabbed and forced into vehicle by three gunmen
Today marks one week since the shocking kidnapping of Riana Pretorius, a young biokineticist in Gqeberha.
And while the Hawks work around the clock to ensure she is returned to her family unharmed, a man arrested in connection with her kidnapping will apply for bail tomorrow.
Xolisile Rawutini, 40, appeared briefly in the city’s magistrate’s court on Monday, where he faces provisional charges of illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Details have also since emerged on how Rawutini was nabbed just an hour after Pretorius was snatched outside her Newton Park workplace.
As news spread that she had been forced into a white Toyota Corolla by three armed men as she arrived for work at the Newton Medical Centre in Pickering Street at 8am on Thursday last week, police managed to swiftly trace the vehicle.
As a high-speed chase ensued, one of the alleged kidnappers threw something out the window, causing one of the police vehicles to stop.
When the Corolla finally came to a halt in Old Grahamstown Road, between Deal Party and Swartkops, Rawutini allegedly opened the left passenger door and tried to flee.
He was successfully apprehended, but the driver and one other person fled on foot towards New Brighton.
There, police conducting a search were called and they managed to arrest a second person but later released him after it was discovered they had the wrong man.
Ammunition and a firearm were confiscated and sent for ballistics tests, and the vehicle was dusted for fingerprints and DNA.
Meanwhile, in the Gqeberha high court yesterday, another case involving a Nelson Mandela Bay woman took centre stage as Dylan Cullis, 25, took to the dock, eager to spill the beans on his alleged involvement in the murder of Vicki Terblanche.
Cullis has quietly waited on the sidelines for more than a year for his turn to speak up as Vicki’s estranged husband, Arnold Terblanche, brought one application after another, finally securing his release on bail last month.
But it was not to be yesterday, as Cullis’s case was once again postponed to March 29.
A plea agreement — still to be accepted and enforced by the judge — has been entered into between the prosecution and the defence.
It is understood that in exchange for his guilty plea and testimony during the main trial involving Terblanche and Vicki’s boyfriend, Rhynardt Leach, Cullis will be sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment for murder.
Cullis, who abandoned his bid for bail, was close friends with Leach at the time.
The son of a nurse and a for
mer police officer, Cullis has played open cards with the state from the get-go, and was the one to point out the location of Vicki’s body, buried in a shallow grave in Greenbushes.
She was drugged, suffocated and strangled at her Mill Park home before being shoved into the boot of a car, and her body dumped.
The October 2021 murder allegedly took place at the behest of Terblanche, a wealthy businessman, as the two were embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody battle over their minor son.
Cullis appeared almost jovial in court yesterday as he smiled and chatted to his father, William.
It is not yet clear exactly what Cullis’s alleged role was in Vicki’s murder.
Terblanche, who is out on bail of R1m, is expected back in court along with Leach tomorrow.
A fourth person, Mario de Ridder Jnr, has turned state witness.
Terblanche faces additional charges of conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice by interfering in the legal process, and conspiracy to have his co-accused killed.
Senior state advocate Marius Stander previously confirmed to the court that all the charges would be combined, that Terblanche would be furnished with an indictment at his next appearance, and that a high court date would then be set.
While Vicki’s story had a devastating ending, the friends and family of Pretorius, 26, continue to hold onto the hope that she will be found alive after a R2m ransom demand was made for her release.
A prayer service was held on Sunday.
Police have not led any searches for her body, a telling sign that her story may be different to that of another Bay victim, slain schoolteacher Jayde Panayiotou — kidnapped and killed by the hitmen hired by her husband, Christopher.
Instead, the elite Hawks unit, which has taken over the probe into Pretorius’s kidnapping, remains tight-lipped, with even the media liaison officer prohibited from speaking to the media.
It is understood that conspiracy and kidnapping charges will be added to Rawutini’s charge sheet and that at least two other suspects are still at large.