Byleveld 'wanted bonus'
2009-12-23 08:42
Cape Town - One of South Africa's top detectives, Piet Byleveld, wanted the high profile Leigh Matthews murder case in 2004 to "be finished as quickly as possible, because he would receive a special bonus".
This is stated in court documents submitted to the Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday by Donovan Moodley, Matthews's murderer.
In those documents, Moodley asks for leave to appeal Judge Joop Labuschagne's refusal in the High Court in Johannesburg to allow him to appeal. Among other things, Moodley wants a retrial.
In his appeals court documents, he says Byleveld was "under great financial pressure" and had his eye on the bonus for the arrest of a suspect related to the murder.
"This influenced him to such an extent that he manipulated the investigation."
On Tuesday Byleveld said that, because the case is sub judice, he can't comment. "But what I can say, is this: I find the statements ridiculous."
Moodley says one of his reasons for wanting a retrial, is because he wants a chance to prove that "other people" were involved in the kidnapping of Matthews on the Bond university campus in July 2004.
He says, as in his application earlier this year before Labuschagne, that the judge did not fulfil his judicial duty by making sure Moodley understood what he admitted to in his plea agreement when the trial started in 2005.
He contends that Labuschagne did not try to ascertain that he planned the murder. Moodley says he shot Matthews "because I didn't know how else to get rid of her". He contends that this means it wasn't a premeditated murder.
"Only when I considered how to let Matthews go free, after I received the ransom, I realised, it can't be done. I made the decision there and then to shoot her, and I did end up shooting her."
He feels his sentence of life is "shocking" and that he should have been given 15 years in prison.
Judge Lex Mpati, president of the Supreme Court of Appeal, will refer Moodley's application to two appeal judges for consideration.