Witness threatened with death
2006-01-24 17:35
Pretoria - An eyewitness to the gruesome murders of a Chinese couple and their four-year-old daughter told the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday that the alleged killers had threatened him with death if he did not keep quiet.
They offered to send him back to China if he complied, Yan Bo Zhang told the court in his second day of testimony in the trial of Chinese nationals Siyuan Liu, 48, and Jiansen Bai, 54.
Both have denied murdering Chinese businessman Jia-Bin Li, his wife Zin and daughters Ruby, 4, and Louise in November 2004.
Their decomposing bodies were found in a storm-water drain in the veld next to the Samrand Road in Midrand.
Zhang told the court of a ride with the four bodies stacked in the back of a minibus.
Taken to a brothel
The bodies were hurriedly dumped in a manhole next to the road, he testified. Liu had covered the manhole with a stop street sign. Two cellphones were also thrown out of the car.
Both later told him and another Chinese man, Sheng Lin, not to be scared, but to go home and sleep as they had nothing to do with the murders.
Zhang told the court the accused threatened to get someone to kill him if he went to the police.
The next day, Bai phoned him and told him to immediately return to China if he was scared.
He later took Zhang to a restaurant for a meal and to a brothel. In a long chat afterwards, Bai promised to arrange to send him back to China if he was scared.
He instructed Zhang to leave his flat and move closer to the Chinese embassy, throw away his simcard and not contact him again, the court heard.
Meanwhile, in a visit to his flat, Liu first told him they could arrange to send him back to China, later returning and threatened to attack him if he told the police anything.
Zhang told the court he had planned to go back to China in December 2004, but was arrested before he could leave. He later made a full statement to the police and became a state witness when charges against him were withdrawn.
The trial continues.
- SAPA