Prosecutor accuses Henri of selective memory loss
SENIOR prosecutor Susan Galloway told the Western Cape High Court yesterday that triple murder accused Henri van Breda had “selective memory loss more often than not when it comes to incriminating evidence”.
The 23-year-old faces three counts of murder and one of attempted murder for the axe attacks on his family at their home in the De Zalze estate in January 2015.
He has pleaded not guilty to the attacks that left his parents Martin and Teresa and brother Rudi dead. His sister Marli, 16 at the time, has retrograde amnesia.
After several days of poking holes in Van Breda’s version that a laughing, balaclava-clad, axe-wielding intruder was behind the attacks, Galloway wrapped up her cross-examination.
She highlighted the discrepancies in Van Breda’s initial statement to police on January 27 and his plea explanation, saying that he later added timelines, became “vague” when it suited him and had tailored his evidence after having “ample time” to scrutinise the docket.
Van Breda said he was pushed by police officer Colonel Deon Beneke to “sound more sure” of things than he was, and has consistently blamed the discrepancies in his statement on Beneke’s “misrepresentations” of his words.
He told the court that he read and signed the statement despite omissions and inaccuracies, as he knew once he signed it he could go home. “If I had known the statement would be used in court, I would not have signed it. I did not understand the situation I was in.”
Galloway pointed out that in his plea explanation, Van Breda said there were at least two attackers.
It read: “I also recall hearing what sounded like angry voices of more than one person, somewhere else in the house. Although I could not distinguish specific words, it sounded like they were speaking Afrikaans.”
Yet, in his police statement he made no mention of a second intruder. Van Breda insisted he had told police about the second attacker, but hadn’t been able to give them much information. He wasn’t sure why they left it out of the statement, he told the court.
When pressed by Judge Siraj Desai about the importance of telling the police about a second intruder so that they could pursue those responsible, Van Breda said he hadn’t noticed the omission at the time.
Galloway pointed out that he was able to give a detailed description of his struggle with the attacker, and even direct the demonstration acted out in court last week, yet he couldn’t remember details of certain events.
She put it to Van Breda that it appeared that some of the explanations he gave was an attempt to explain certain information in the docket.
But Van Breda denied this, saying: “No, I say I can’t recall when I can’t recall.”
The case was adjourned until today, when defence lawyer Piet Botha was to proceed with reexamination of his client.