|
Prosecutor too scared to work
29/05/2007 18:34 - (SA)
Pretoria - A prosecutor who was stabbed in the Regional Court buildings here is still too afraid to return to work, the court heard on Tuesday.
Sipho Mnisi, 33, of Hammanskraal admitted in Pretoria High Court that in September last year he attacked control prosecutor Marisa Booyse, 37, with a knife and stabbed her 14 times before stealing her cellphone.
Mnisi, however, denied that his intention was to kill her.
He claimed that he became frightened and started stabbing her when she grabbed her cellphone and started screaming.
Mnisi said he had realised that he had caused Booyse a lot of pain and suffering and begged her forgiveness.
Arrested at court building
He was out on bail for his alleged involvement in the murder of a teenager, 19-year-old Peet van der Merwe, outside the Centurion Mall when he allegedly attacked Booyse.
He was arrested at the court building and identified as Booyse's attacker before he could flee.
Booyse testified that she was sitting behind her desk with her cellphone in front of her when Mnisi entered her office.
When he failed to answer when she asked if she could help him and stepped closer, she realised something was wrong.
The next moment she felt him chopping at her with something. She never saw a knife in his hands and thought he might be attacking her with a pen.
She tried to ward off the blows with her hands and arms, but he kept on stabbing her again and again while she screamed for help.
"I remember thinking at one stage that he was stabbing me to death, because it just went on and on. It felt like a very long time," she said.
Booyse remembered lying in the corridor in a pool of blood and being helped by colleagues and later paramedics.
She also remembered identifying her cellphone and Mnisi as her attacker.
Still under psychiatric care
"I had a lot of wounds to my hands and arms, which needed stitches. There was a wound in my neck that narrowly missed an artery and the wound in my chest entered my lung.
"I was in hospital for almost a week and had to undergo operations.
"I've never been back to work. I'm too scared to go back. I'm still under psychiatric care," she said.
|
News
