Cape Town – Judgment is expected in the Cape Town Regional Court on Tuesday in the bail application of Guatemalan murder accused Diego Dougherty.
Magistrate Grant Engel initially set down proceedings for 10am, but moved them forward by an hour so that the victim’s family could make their Tuesday afternoon flight back to America.
The parents of 39-year-old Gabriela Kabrins Alban travelled to South Africa from the United States, and have anxiously been awaiting a bail decision in the matter of the man accused of murdering their daughter.
Alban’s mother, Doris Weitz, said she was relieved she would be in court for Tuesday’s bail judgment.
The 43-year-old Dougherty has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his American marketing executive girlfriend. She was found dead in the hotel room they were sharing in a top boutique hotel in Camps Bay on July 29 last year.
During Dougherty’s bail application, the court heard that she had suffered blunt trauma to her face, had defensive wounds on her arms, and had been strangled to death.
State prosecutor Louise Friester-Sampson has opposed bail, arguing the accused, who holds both Guatemalan and Italian passports, poses a serious flight risk.
She told the court the state had a strong case against the accused and that he faces a 15-year minimum sentence if convicted, and that the matter would be adjudicated in the high court.
Dougherty is from a prominent and very wealthy Guatemalan family that runs the only cement business in the South American country.
“It is true that the accused can travel, he has no employment history, he has no ties, no children. Where the wind blows, he will go”, she told the court.
She also said he had stayed in the USA after his visa had expired and had had to be deported. In the US, he was convicted of driving under the influence, and was also found to be in possession of a dependence-inducing substance.
She said the fact that he was a flight risk was “central” to the bail application, and if he wanted to abscond, he would be able to make the financial arrangements to do so.
But defence laywer William Booth argued that his client had not been charged with premeditated murder.
He said Dougherty, in his affidavit, referred to the issue of diminished responsibility due to drug intoxication, and that the state of his mental health would play a significant role in his trial.
He said his client had offered various guarantees because of the fact that he was not South African.
These included paying a security company to accompany him to and from the police station, and to court. This would be in addition to the electronic tagging done by the Correctional Services department.
“It’s not like he can go across the border without someone picking it up. He will have intense surveillance in place,” Booth argued.
Booth proposed Dougherty be released on bail of R100 000.
Judgment in the bail application will be delivered on Tuesday.
African News Agency