Mom set for psychiatric evaluation

ZINHLE Maditla, the woman who is accused of killing her four children at Klarinet, Emalahleni, Mpumalanga, might have been mentally incapacitated when she allegedly committed the murders, her defence lawyer Jabulani Maphethe said yesterday.

Mapethe was submitting an application to the Witbank Magistrate’s Court for the 24-year-old Maditla to be referred to a psychiatric institution for mental evaluation.

Maditla was present in court yesterday where she was initially expected to make a formal bail application.

However Maphethe said he had decided against applying for bail.

“I have decided not to proceed with the bail application, and the reason for this application is that I have consulted the accused and she does not seem to be in a good state of mind,” said Maphethe of Legal Aid South Africa.

“The nature of this offence makes one wonder if a person can commit such an offence when they are in the right state of mind.

‘I believe you require as much expert knowledge as the law allows you to serve justice,” he told the magistrate.

Maditla handed herself over to the police on December 30, shortly after the decomposed bodies of her four children were found in her rented room in Klarinet. She was charged with four counts of premeditated murder.

State prosecutor Johan Harmse agreed to the application and Magistrate Darleen Venter subsequently granted the request.

The case was postponed to February 14.