Cape Town - Tears flowed outside the Western Cape high court on Wednesday as emotional relatives and colleagues of murdered Kraaifontein police officer Rozelle Witbooi expressed disappointment at the acquittal of two men charged in connection with the killing.
“I’m unhappy because at the end of the day she’s gone, she’s not coming back so how can they say there’s no one that took her from us,” said Melissa Dixon-Witbooi, the deceased police officer’s life partner.
Acting Judge Sakkie Maartens found there was not enough evidence for a murder conviction against Mbongiseni Sithelo and Sicelo Kwayimani.
“A conviction of murder cannot stand and particular facts in this case do not lead to a conviction of culpable homicide,” Maartens said.
Sithelo was however convicted of the attempted murder of Witbooi, while Kwayimani was acquitted on the same charge.
Maartens said while one of the men pulled the trigger of the weapon which killed Witbooi, the court was not in a position to pronounce which of the two fired the fatal shot.
“We are not in a position to reach a finding as to which accused pulled the trigger.”
Witbooi was killed after she and her partner, Jonathan Koopman, responded to an armed robbery at a vegetable farm in Kraaifontein.
Sithelo was also convicted of the attempted murder of Koopman, but his co-accused was acquitted.
Both men were convicted of robbery with aggravating circumstances in relation to the incident at the farm, but acquitted on kidnapping charges which arose after they locked farmworkers in a cold storeroom.
After the judgement, Kraaifontein police station commander, Brigadier Gerda van Niekerk, embraced and consoled some of Witbooi’s distraught colleagues and relatives.
“I need to face the members. I need to face the family and that’s not easy, “ van Niekerk said.
“ It’s quite difficult to understand how can you find somebody guilty on attempted murder and she’s dead. It doesn’t make sense. It’s tough. I mean this was the last chapter for us… and now it feels like we disappointed her.”
Van Niekerk said she was confident the State would appeal the judgement.
ANA