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Baby-killer accused beaten up
01/09/2005 16:02 - (SA)
Cape Town - The bail hearing of one of the men accused of murdering Cape Town baby Jordan Norton was postponed abruptly on Thursday after the accused was beaten up in the cells of Wynberg magistrate's court.
His advocate Charles Simon told the magistrate after the lunch break that Sipho Mfazwe was in no condition to continue the application.
Mfazwe and fellow accused Mongezi Bobotyane were severely assaulted during the lunch break by a group of other prisoners who shouted "here are the child murderers".
Simon said the two men, and a third accused, Zanethemloa Gwada, had been threatened at Pollsmoor Prison, where they are being detained, and police were aware of this.
He said the authorities would be asked to take special measures to protect the men, who were taken to hospital for medical treatment after magistrate Carmen Wyngaard postponed the hearing to Friday morning.
Baby fathered by her boyfriend
The three, along with Dina Rodrigues and a 16-year-old youth, are alleged to have conspired to murder six-month-old Jordan in her home on June 15.
It is alleged Rodrigues contracted the four to kill the baby after she discovered Jordan had been fathered by her boyfriend.
It emerged on Thursday that the 16-year-old was not applying for bail because he was sentenced last week to a five-year jail term on what is believed to have been a robbery charge.
Mfazwe told the court on Thursday morning, before the postponement, that he was a taxi driver earning about R500 a week, and could not afford bail as high as the R20 000 on which Rodrigues has already been released.
"Money that I can pay, your worship, it's plus-minus R1 000," he told Wyngaard through a Xhosa interpreter.
He said he had a serious medical condition, which he declined to name, and which he said required constant medical treatment.
His health was deteriorating in prison because he was not getting his tablets there, he said.
Mother interjected
Asked by Simon about a document "which the State calls a confession", he said he did not want to answer any questions on it in the bail hearing.
"I will answer when it's the trial," he said. "I will answer when we testify."
His pensioner mother, Eveline, who sat near him in court holding a Bible, was asked by Wyngaard to keep quiet after she interjected during cross examination by prosecutor John Ryneveld.
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