Man in the dock for a ‘minor murder’
A Ceres man allegedly told a friend that he committed a “minor murder” when he beat a man to death, a court heard.
|||Cape Town - ‘I committed a ‘ligte moordjie’ (minor murder) at the dam.” These were the words a Ceres man allegedly used when he delivered the news to a friend that he beat a man to death and set him alight in an apparent gay hate crime, two witnesses told the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday.
The witnesses, Demetri Jooste and Brandon Koopman, were testifying in the High Court, sitting in Ceres, on the first day of the trial of Christo Oncke.
Oncke pleaded not guilty to the March 2014 murder of 23-year-old Dawid Olyne, who had been bound and beaten to a pulp before his bloodied body was set alight in a shed near Deelville Farm in Ceres.
Gay rights activists from The Triangle Project and Sonke Gender Justice filled the courtroom’s public gallery on Tuesday after it was reported that Oncke told a group of teenagers drinking at a dam in the area that he was going to kill a “moffie”.
Both Jooste and Koopman told the court that Oncke had a “wild look about him” and veins in his neck were accentuated.
According to Jooste, Oncke came running towards them and claimed that three men had assaulted him.
They had been drinking and smoking dagga at the time. Oncke asked for help and they followed him to a nearby shed.
However, instead of finding three men, they saw Olyne lying on his stomach, his face covered in blood and his feet bound with an electric cable.
The cable was also tied around his neck.
Jooste testified before Judge Siraj Desai and assessors, Attie Heyns and Altus Joubert, that he intervened when Oncke kicked Olyne and told him to leave the victim alone. But Oncke allegedly responded: “The man must die,” and threatened to kill Jooste too. He said Oncke wasn’t himself and that he appeared wild and stressed.
Jooste testified further that he and his friends decided to leave the scene and return to the dam. After a short while, Oncke returned. He told them that he was going to set the deceased alight, the court heard.
Jooste said he heard Oncke speaking to a friend on the phone later that day, saying: “I committed a minor murder.”
Koopman told the court that some of them returned to the scene the following day and saw Olyne’s charred body outside the shed.
He testified that he didn’t know how it was moved.
A third witness, who cannot be identified because he is a minor, added that Oncke uttered the words “fire burn” as he watched Olyne’s body burn. All three witnesses said they were scared of Oncke.
The trial continues.
fatima.schroeder@inl.co.za
Cape Argus
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