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Blood on knife 'human, male'
07/05/2008 18:49 - (SA)
Grahamstown - Blood on a knife allegedly used to murder a Cradock police inspector has been determined as "human and male", the Grahamstown High Court heard on Wednesday.
However, a DNA match could mot be made because of the deterioration of the dead man's control blood sample.
Bakhulule Ngwala-Ngwala, 20, and Siyabonga Jim, 19, both from Cradock, are charged with stabbing to death off-duty police inspector Bazil Quilie, 38, on October 10 last year.
Quilie was walking home from a tavern in Cradock with his girlfriend Marilyn Volmink,
The accused, who denied guilt, claimed the blood-stained knife found in their possession resulted from them killing a springbok.
Volmink was one of two State witnesses who said they saw Quilie being killed.
He was stabbed 38 times, and one of the home-made knives was 45cm long. The other knife was one half of a sheep-shearing implement, with a bandage wound around the handle.
On Wednesday, Judge Jeremy Pickering postponed the trial until August 4.
This came after State advocate Glenn Turner informed the court of the results of the forensic analysis, which and just been faxed to him from Cape Town.
"The tests indicate that the blood on the knife is both human and male, but because of the state of deterioration of the deceased's control blood sample, a DNA match cannot be made," he said.
Turner said arrangements would be made to draw a blood sample from Quilie's mother, in order to see if the blood on the knife matched her DNA.
He said her DNA would contain the same genetic markers as that of her dead son.
Defence lawyers, advocates Jock MaChonnachie and Craig Renaud, requested that their clients be transferred from the Grahamstown prison to the one in Cradock to be near their families.
Pickering asked Turner to approach the prison authorities concerned to see if this could be done until the trial resumed.
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