Acid attack: magistrate to decide intent
Is an attack on a person with acid intent to do grievous bodily harm or attempted murder?
|||Johannesburg - Is an attack on a person with acid intent to do grievous bodily harm or attempted murder?
This is what Joburg magistrate Albertus Roux has to decide when he sentences Jan Pieterse on October 20. In November last year, Pieterse threw acid over his former girlfriend, Ines Antonio.
During closing arguments on Wednesday, the magistrate questioned prosecutor Mahange ka Mzizi about whether the charge should not be dropped to a lower one, saying it was possible that Pieterse had only intended to harm her and not to kill Antonio.
Ka Mzizi, however, argued that a doctor had testified that the acid had caused so much damage that the first skin graft didn’t take because the acid was still eating away at her flesh.
“There could be further medical complications which could lead to her death, therefore this should be attempted murder,” he said. Furthermore, with this being the second acid attack in South Africa, it shows this type of attack is on the increase and therefore the courts should show that they are taking this seriously, he added.
In closing arguments, the prosecutor said Antonio had no plans to meet him on the day of the attack and she had, in fact, blocked his cellphone number as she wanted nothing more to do with him.
Ka Mzizi also contended that she didn’t see the container with the acid leaving Pieterse’s hands, indicating he hadn’t thrown a closed tin at her to defend himself against her.
She said Pieterse could not claim self-defence as Antonio was a small woman, and even if she had slapped him as he claimed, he could either have used his crutch to ward her off or could have slapped her back.
“He exceeded the limits of self-defence. He had direct intention to injure her. This was also evident from the text messages in which he said: ‘If I can’t have you, no one else will’.”
The prosecutor said Pieterse contradicted himself about why he had bought the acid – first he said it was to clean his car and then he said it was to clean a drain, and was so corrosive, it would have damaged car parts.
Defence attorney AG Greyling said Pieterse had acted in self-defence and didn’t know it was acid. He said the meeting was planned. Antonio had also contradicted her evidence in that she denied there was another man.
Greyling said the second attempted murder charge should be withdrawn as a witness had said Antonio’s young daughter was close to her mother after the attack and could have been burnt by acid on her mother’s body.
anna.cox@inl.co.za
The Star