THE Kareeboomvloer farm massacre trial is scheduled to resume in the High Court in Windhoek in early December, with admitted multiple killer Sylvester Beukes set to continue with the testimony that he started giving last week.

Time again caught up with the trial on Friday, with the end not yet in sight for Beukes's testimony after he had already spent three and a half days on the witness stand giving evidence on the killing of eight people at farm Kareeboomvloer between Kalkrand and Rehoboth on March 5 2005.

Beukes (23) is set to continue facing cross-examination from defence lawyer Titus Mbaeva, who is representing Beukes's brother, Gavin Beukes (27), when the trial continues from December 3 to 12.

With the postponement of the trial on Friday, Judge President Petrus Damaseb told the lawyers involved in the matter that they should try to ensure that the crossexamination of Beukes would at least be completed in the next session of the trial.

After that, the next available dates for the trial to continue are only in March next year - four years after the events that landed the Beukes brothers and two coaccused in the dock before Judge President Damaseb.

With the brothers in the dock on 15 charges, which include eight counts of murder, are Rehoboth area resident Stoney Neidel (31) and Justus Christiaan ('Shorty') Erasmus (31).

Erasmus's parents were the owners of farm Kareeboomvloer, where they and six residents of the farm, including a pregnant woman and two children, were killed three and a half years ago.

Sylvester Beukes told the Judge President last week that he carried out the killings after Erasmus had asked him to murder Erasmus's parents, with N$50 000 promised to Beukes as payment for the job.

Erasmus is denying the allegations.

Beukes also claimed that while his brother was present at the farm when the killings there were taking place, he spent most of this time tied up and did not take part in any of the murders.

According to Beukes he had tied up his brother, releasing him again only before the two men set off from the farm with a bakkie and trailer loaded with a hoard of goods that they removed from the farm and ended up storing at Neidel's home at Rehoboth and at a farm west of the town.

The prosecution is alleging that the four charged men had acted in common purpose when the crimes they are charged with were committed.

According to Gavin Beukes, though, he was an unwilling spectator to the killings and other crimes alleged to have been committed at the farm, as he was under threat from his brother.

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Boris Isaacks, representing Neidel, Beukes confirmed on Friday that his brother was driving the bakkie transporting the goods from the farm when they arrived at Neidel's house at Rehoboth.

Beukes however denied that his brother again drove the bakkie from Rehoboth to farm Areb west of the town to take a load of the goods to the farm.

Two rifles that were taken from Kareeboomvloer were left with Neidel at farm Areb.

The Police found another firearm - a .38 Special revolver that Beukes claimed Erasmus supplied to him in Windhoek on January 31 2005 as part of the plan to have his parents killed - in the veld at farm Areb, the court has also heard.

This would mean that when the Beukes brothers left the farm, from where they drove to Windhoek, where the bakkie was abandoned, Sylvester Beukes was no longer armed.

Beukes told the Judge President that he had warned his brother at Kareeboomvloer that he should not do anything - and that if he did, he would be shot.

According to Beukes he had last left the .38 Special revolver in the glovebox of the bakkie, which was abandoned in the Gammams area in Windhoek.

On a question from the Judge President about how he would have carried out his threat against his brother when they thereafter took a taxi ride to a service station in Windhoek, from where they later again got a ride to Rehoboth, Beukes said he would have run away if his brother had gone against his instructions then.

If Gavin Beukes had gone into the shop at the service station to report what had happened at Kareeboomvloer, he also could have done "anything", like stabbing his brother, Beukes also answered another question from the Judge President.

Beukes further told the court that his brother did not know that he no longer had the revolver with him, or that he had a knife on him.

He also testified that after he and his brother had returned to their home at Rehoboth, he left the house to go somewhere else, leaving his brother behind.

When he returned, the Police were at the house, and his and his brother's arrests took place.

They had been back home for only about an hour before they were arrested, he said.

The Beukeses remain in custody until the trial continues.

Neidel and Erasmus are free on bail.