Murder trial 'all about race'

2007-11-21 09:05

Tisha Steyn

Knysna - Pressure on the police to arrest somebody in connection with the murder of two white girls led to the arrest of his son, said the father of accused Heinrich van Rooyen on Tuesday.

Van Rooyen, 25, who is accused of murdering Jessica Wheeler, 19, and Victoria Stadler, 20, in 2005.

"If two coloured girls had been murdered, or if a white suspect was involved, the case would never have enjoyed so much publicity and the police wouldn't have been so anxious to arrest my son that they ignored procedure," said Isaac van Rooyen outside court on Tuesday.

This comment followed after two more trials within the trial regarding the admissibility of statements by the accused.

Illegal search warrant

The first statement was obtained by captain Gert Coerecius from the detective branch in Mossel Bay on November 17. Van Rooyen's house was searched with an illegal search warrant and he was arrested by inspector Riaan Meyer earlier that day.

Coerecius was called as a State witness on Tuesday concerning this statement made by Van Rooyen in the absence of his attorney, Casper Lötter from Graaff-Reinet.

Van Rooyen was released because nothing in his statement could link him to the murders, Coerecius testified on Tuesday. Judge Nathan Erasmus postponed a decision pending testimony from Lötter on Thursday.

Van Rooyen was arrested for the second time in the industrial area on December 8. Inspector Riaan Meyer, who has since then left the police, again testified about a warning given to Van Rooyen on this day.

This statement was questioned by Terry Price, advocate for the defence, in the same way the illegal search warrant was questioned last week.

Price said this statement was also defective as it was done in the absence of the accused's lawyer after he had stated clearly that he wanted to exercise his right to remain silent.

According to this statement Van Rooyen was arrested on the grounds of testimony in the police's possession that he befriended both victims before their death and flirted with them; that he ... made them drunk before they died; that he told them that he wanted to have sex with them and indicated his sexual preferences; that he influenced a witness to make a false statement to the police in order to create an alibi in Stadler's murder; that his cellphone was switched off in both instances and that activities on his cellphone indicated that he was in the Knysna area at the time of the murders.

Although he exercised his right to remain silent regarding to a statement, he was nevertheless questioned about his relationship with the women in the absence of his attorney. A tape recording of the procedure on that day, which was done in the presence of director Attie Trollip, the chief investigating officer in the case, has since disappeared without a trace.

Meyer said "the police's work cannot come to a standstill simply because the attorney was not available", as he had to prepare the docket for Van Rooyen's court appearance the next morning.

Erasmus allowed the statement as evidence.

- Die Burger