Werner Menges
26 June 2009
AN ILLNESS that kept multiple murder suspect Gavin Beukes from making it to the High Court in Windhoek this week has forced a further postponement of the Kareeboomvloer farm massacre trial to early August.
Beukes (27) is ill and could only get an appointment to see a specialist doctor by today, Judge President Petrus Damaseb was told when Beukes' three co-accused made an appearance in the High Court on Tuesday.
Because of Beukes' absence, the trial has now been postponed to August 6. Court dates up to August 14 were allocated for the continuation of the trial.
Beukes, his brother, Sylvester Beukes (24), Rehoboth area resident Stoney Neidel (32), and Windhoek resident Justus Christiaan ('Shorty') Erasmus (31) went on trial before the Judge President on March 1 2007.
They are facing 15 charges, including eight counts of murder. All of them pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
The four men are accused of having been involved in the murder of eight people at farm Kareeboomvloer between Rehoboth and Kalkrand during the weekend of March 4 and 5 2005.
Erasmus's parents, who were the owners of the farm, were among the victims of the massacre.
The Beukes brothers were arrested at their home at Rehoboth on March 6 2005.
At a first court appearance at Mariental on March 9 2005, Sylvester Beukes admitted that he shot dead all eight people who were killed at the farm.
He claimed he was motivated by an urge to take revenge on farm owner Rassie Erasmus (50) because Erasmus laid a stock theft charge against him in 2004 when he was still employed at the farm.
Beukes also claimed that, while his brother was present at the farm when the eight people were killed, Gavin Beukes was a passive witness who was tied up while the killings took place.
Five days after that courtroom confession, though, Beukes changed his story and made a statement to Police in which he claimed the killings were the result of a contract killing on the Erasmus couple that their son, 'Shorty' Erasmus, had asked him to carry out.
The younger Erasmus was arrested and charged as a result of Beukes' claim.
Erasmus denies Beukes' accusations, which Beukes repeated in testimony in the trial in September and December last year.
The accusations were also denied by Erasmus when he started testifying in his own defence at the beginning of this month.
Erasmus had already been under cross-examination by Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef for a day and a half before a death in the family of Gavin Beukes's defence lawyer, Titus Mbaeva, interrupted the trial on June 8.
Verhoef will continue the cross-examination of Erasmus when the trial resumes in August.
The Beukes brothers are being kept in custody. Erasmus and Neidel are free on bail.
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