Killing 'a promise to God'
2003-04-29 12:30
Pretoria - De Wet Kritzinger admitted to having shot dead three people on a Pretoria bus in 2000, but pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and four of attempted murder on Tuesday.
"I believed that by shooting dead innocent black people on a bus I would obey my promise to God," he said in a statement read to Pretoria High Court by his counsel, Harry Prinsloo.
Kritzinger had hoped he would be killed himself, so his former wife could remarry. In his belief, it would be wrong for her to remarry if he was still alive.
"I had to die, so she could be free."
Kritzinger said the shootings were not racist. He did not hate other nations, but he hated the Jews, whom he called the descendants of Satan.
"I believe the Western white nations are the chosen people of God."
After the shootings in January 2000, Kritzinger fled and lived in the mountains near Patensie, in the Eastern Cape, for six months.
Mentally fit to stand trial
He then went to Modimolle (Nylstroom) in Limpopo, where he lived and worked using the pseudonym Jan Pretorius. Police arrested him there in September last year.
At the start of Tuesday's proceedings, Judge Dion Basson found Kritzinger mentally accountable and able to stand trial.
This followed a report by three psychiatrists stating that the 30-year-old had no mental disorder or defect and could realise the wrongful nature of his crime.
The trial continues.
- SAPA